Missing TnT Scenes Season Three
by Alelou
Summary: Now we're cookin' ... this is a series of canon-friendly Trip and T'Pol scenes or scene extensions from each episode in turn. The season is now COMPLETE.
1. The Xindi

**SPOILERS:** "The Xindi," and it may not make sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "The Xindi" was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **And so we head into the Expanse and Season 3. I'm not sure exactly how far I will take this season, since I have already written a lot of 'missing scenes' in the Commander Tucker series that fall after "Harbinger." If I can find something different I want to say for those eps, I'll keep going. But at this point I make no promises for completion, or for speed of updating. (Reviews never hurt the prospects for either, of course, since they are the drug that keeps a fanfic author posting.)

* * *

She decided to finish the neuro-pressure session with the Commander's shoulders, though she quickly realized it would take more time than she had to release them sufficiently. She had already spent most of the allotted time on his back, which had needed a great deal of attention.

Of course, it was also possible that she had worked on his back for so long because she was avoiding the awkwardness of eye contact in such an intimate position. She suspected he felt the same way, since he hadn't seemed to know where to look when she had finally asked him to face her. He had also been unusually quiet, though he was perhaps concentrating on the breathing she had taught him.

Although that was exactly what she had requested, she had found it increasingly awkward as the silent minutes passed. A Vulcan did not change her schedule because of feelings of awkwardness, however, so it was exactly 50 minutes from the beginning of their session that she lifted her fingers from his shoulders and said, "I believe we have accomplished as much as we can for one night. How do you feel?"

He smiled sleepily. "I feel great. Thank you."

"I suggest you continue to practice your breathing technique until it becomes automatic. It prevents injury and ensures maximum benefit from the neuro-pressure. It also offers significant benefits of its own, especially if you are ever in pain but lack access to medical help."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." He pulled his shirt down over his head. "You know, Phlox probably would have had me agreeing to this in about a second if he'd just called it a massage."

"Indeed?" She did not bother to disguise her skepticism.

"I'm serious. Who doesn't love a massage? 'Vulcan neuro-pressure,' on the other hand … that sounds a little scary - like you're going to - I don't know - reprogram my neurons or something."

"I still doubt you would have welcomed the idea of a massage from me." She was certain she had not imagined the distinct increase in distance from him in the wake of her microbe-induced _pon farr._

"Well… it's a little confusing, that's all. I mean, you _are_ the same T'Pol who refused to shake my hand the first time we met. I know you're not big on physical contact…usually." His face flushed. "Which is probably why I kinda got the wrong impression earlier. Sorry about that."

"Your confusion was understandable. Neuro-pressure is a rather intimate exercise. I would not normally have agreed to do it myself."

He frowned. "Then why did you?"

"Dr. Phlox was insistent that you required assistance and that I could provide it."

"But if it makes you uncomfortable..."

"Surak teaches us that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

"Last time I checked, I'm just one, not many. Same as you. So I don't see why you'd need to go outweighing _your _needs in favor of _mine_."

"As Chief Engineer you are vital to the success of this mission."

"We could say just the same about you as First Officer, or Science Officer."

"We could, but I don't believe I require assistance to the degree that you do right now, Commander."

"So that whole thing about having trouble sleeping really was just part of the set-up?" He stuck his tongue in the side of his cheek and raised his eyebrows. "You _lied_?"

Trust Mr. Tucker to find a way to try to find a way to needle her even about this. "Hardly. My sleep patterns have indeed been disturbed. However, I can function well on far less sleep than a Human can."

His brow furrowed. "So … was that tiny little bit I did there enough to give you better rest tonight, or do you need more?"

Was he possibly just trying to get her to take her shirt off again? But that seemed unlikely – his manner tonight had not struck her as sexually attracted in any of the ways she had ever observed among Humans and their entertainments. He had reminded her more of a person gingerly dealing with dangerous explosives. "It is late, Commander. You should get some sleep."

"Next time, then. We could make it a little more even."

"Agreed. I will see you here tomorrow night at twenty-one hundred."

"_Tomorrow?"_ His mouth dropped open.

"Will you not require sleep again tomorrow?"

"Are you saying we have to do this _every night?"_

She wasn't sure she'd ever felt quite so profoundly irritated in her life. "Do you find the idea distasteful?"

"No. No. Of course not. It's just … it's time-consuming. In case you haven't noticed, so far the Expanse is keeping us pretty busy in Engineering."

"You cannot hope to achieve lasting results from neuro-pressure without sustained effort."

He scowled and looked away. "I'll see what I can do."

Given his affect, she anticipated that Commander Tucker would not return for neuro-pressure the next night, or possibly ever. "You must do as you see fit," she said icily. She had compromised her principles to help him sleep, spent almost an _hour _touching and smelling his bare skin at great cost to her own emotional control – for while he might not be feeling any sexual attraction, she could not escape the growing certainty that _she_ was – and now he didn't even want to show up for the next session?

She blinked, taken by surprise by the degree of anger she was feeling. She hadn't felt such strong emotion since childhood. Was this infuriated sense of having been personally rejected due to lack of sufficient sleep, or was it perhaps a hangover from that _pon farr_, or an effect of the _Pa'nar _syndrome? There was no escaping that it was irrational. There was no justification whatsoever for allowing herself to feel attracted to Commander Tucker, a professional colleague and a Human, especially during a mission this important.

Perhaps she should tell him to forget about the neuro-pressure. Given how it affected her, it would perhaps be foolhardy to continue. And yet she couldn't bring herself to say the words. She wanted that hour with the only man on the ship who ever seemed to truly see her - and he clearly needed it, even if he was doing his best to avoid it.

_If _he ever returned, she would just have to keep herself firmly in control.

She could still do that, surely? She turned away, afraid her face might betray some of her inner turmoil. She didn't return Commander Tucker's "Well, good night, then," or watch him go. Instead, she lit a candle and dropped down into her meditation posture.

Seldom had she needed it more.


	2. Anomaly

**SPOILERS:** "Anomaly," and it may not make sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Anomaly" was written by Mike Sussman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **It's a little heavy on the techno-babble, but hang on and things get more, ahem, down-to-earth towards the end. (Mild sexual content and language alert.) For those exceedly few of you who actually review (blessings be upon you) I'm going to be traveling, so don't think I'm rude if you don't get a reply back quickly this time.

Thank you as always, beta **justTripn. **

* * *

If the Cochrane Equation was not a constant in this part of the universe, and none of his adjustments to the quantum variables worked without throwing off the spatial gradients, then … what? Either his adjustments were the wrong adjustments, or they were now hopelessly marooned in the Expanse… all because he was a warp engineer who couldn't get his warp engines to _start,_ let alone run.

Not that it necessarily mattered, since they had next to nothing to run them with.

And if he hadn't had extra sets of plasma injectors and deuterium injectors safely hidden away, there wouldn't be any point in bothering now, anyway. If something happened to _these _now…

He sighed. At least those bastards hadn't taken their antimatter injectors. Maybe they could tell they were crap.

Trip stared balefully at the calculations he had spread across the mess hall table. Malcolm had already told him to get some sleep … _and_ suggested he was getting unduly cynical.

Malcolm had called _him _cynical. _Everything _was backwards in the Expanse.

He heard the door slide open behind him but didn't bother to look. He had achieved a fugue state of fatigue and disgust, a kind of in-the-zone level of exhaustion, and actually moving his body might disturb it.

"You didn't show up for neuro-pressure again."

Trip sighed. "I did send you a message. Kinda busy here." There was a long silence. Reluctantly, he turned around. She was sipping her tea and looking at him with absolutely no expression on her face. "I'm sorry, T'Pol, but I thought that being able to have warp drive functioning again someday took precedence over my personal comfort."

She stared appraisingly at him, and the hard set of her shoulders relaxed just slightly. "Can I assist you?"

They'd long maintained an unspoken agreement never to discuss technology the Vulcans considered classified if they could avoid it, but if ever a situation called out for an exception, it was this. "How's your warp theory?"

"Cursory. However, I am a strong mathematician. And you appear to be working with equations."

"That I am," he said, and explained the problem to her.

"Is there any way for you to accurately determine the variations you are encountering?" she asked, looking curiously at the part of Cochrane's Equation that had become his own personal nightmare.

"It seems to correspond to the strength of the gravimetric waves we encounter in the anomalies," Tucker said. "In theory, we could take data from our forward scans to determine when and even how much it needs to change. But then, this part of the equation – the part that helps us tune antimatter injection – I also need a way to adjust that _instantaneously _according to the conditions we're actually experiencing. I've tried doing it by feel, and also by inputting just about any factor I can think of out of this scan data, but it's not working – not in the engine room, and not in my simulations. Frankly, it's beginning to look like it's just an impossibility."

"This is the data from your scans?" she asked, picking up a Padd.

"Yep."

"And these were obtained while we were at warp 4?"

"No, they were obtained afterwards. I also have readings from just before the engines went ca-ca, when we were still at warp, right here." He called up the file and gave it to her.

She stared down at the data, brow furrowed. Trip decided to get more coffee and hope she could come up with a more encouraging conclusion than he had.

x x x

He ran his hands over his face and felt the rasp of incipient beard. "I don't think that's the answer the captain is looking for."

T'Pol said, "If he insists on heading further into areas of intense spatial disturbance, we must redouble our efforts to obtain Trellium-D for the hull."

"You think there's any chance he'll agree to go around them?"

"If we can have more success in predicting their location, yes. I will continue working on that problem. These waves occur in a complex pattern that suggests more than one source. It might be possible to build a detailed predictive model. And perhaps if he realizes we can go around them much faster and more reliably than we can go through them…"

Trip shook his head, discouraged. "If he thought the Xindi were in it, I think he'd take us into a black hole."

"As his senior officers, it is our job to advise him about the best interests of crew, ship, and mission."

Trip sighed and said nothing. He didn't get the feeling Jon was interested in hearing anything he had to say lately, unless it was, "Yes sir."

"I believe our current course will take us out of the worst of this gravimetric field soon. It should be possible to achieve warp again then. You should get some sleep, Commander."

He looked up, wondering if she would offer him neuro-pressure, even at this ungodly hour. But she didn't. He looked down and swallowed, both disappointed and relieved. It would have helped, and he was tired enough now that he doubted he needed to worry about being unduly – or too obviously – distracted by her luscious body right there next to him.

But who was he kidding? T'Pol's half-clothed body was about as easy to ignore as a warp core breach, and his reactions to it were as awkward and embarrassing as anything he could remember from adolescence.

Perhaps most of all, he was haunted by that sound she'd made when he'd managed to press on the right spot on her back. He wanted to hear that sound again … and more. Perhaps it was a symptom of his fatigue, or his general sense that everything had turned upside down, but ever since that session he couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to make hot, passionate love to their first officer until she screamed from helpless pleasure – which was about as likely as obtaining warp 5 in the midst of major gravimetric flux.

Of course, fantasizing about T'Pol was not something new for him, so you'd think he could get a grip. But now she'd furnished his imaginings with so much more detail: those silky pajamas … that soft, hot skin … the curve of her ass right there just in front of him … and that tiny little sound of release.

Damn it. Now he couldn't even get up from the table safely. "Okay. I'll try to get a few hours in. I promise. Um … I'm just going to make sure I've saved all our work here before I go."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow, but accepted his delay. "Then I will say good night, Commander."

"Good night, T'Pol. Thank you for your help."

She left, and Trip let his head drop to the table with a clunk.

It was official: The universe was out to torture him.


	3. Extinction

**SPOILERS:** "Extinction," and it may not make sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Extinction" was written by André Bormanis.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **You may recognize elements from some recent discussions in the forum at Triaxian Silk. Thank you as always, reviewers, and of course beta **justTripn. **

* * *

I will be there momentarily," T'Pol told the captain, with a glance at Tucker. He'd finally returned for a session, and now this. She wondered what could possibly require her presence at this hour of the night that didn't also require a tactical alert, but then the captain had – perhaps understandably – become a bit less respectful of his officers' personal time during this mission.

"Duty calls," Tucker said, and reached for his shoes. "You'd better get dressed, unless you plan to go see him in your pj's."

She felt oddly reluctant to let him go, now that he had finally shown up. "You may stay here until I return if you wish," she said. She went to her wardrobe for a fresh cat suit. "You could practice your breathing while focusing on the candle. It is a simple form of meditation that you may find beneficial."

"That's all right. Who knows how long he's going to need you." He scowled a little as he looked for his shirt, then shrugged into it. "And I wore a new shirt and everything," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. Peaches _and _a new shirt. Tucker had put some effort into the evening. He had even arrived on time. "It is a more pleasing color and design than many others I have seen you wear."

He grinned. "Thank you. Now don't forget to finish that peach."

"Perhaps in the morning," she said, cat suit in hand.

Apparently realizing she was waiting for him to leave, he headed for the door, but paused briefly to add, "You can take the peel off if it bothers you. Some people don't like it. I don't mind a little fuzz, myself."

He was out the door before she could reply. The flavor of the peach had been pleasant, but the peel had indeed added a discordant element. She also didn't appreciate that juice had immediately threatened to run down her chin. Perhaps Chef would be willing to prepare it for her to consume in a way that would be more appropriate for a Vulcan.

She zipped up her suit. She certainly hoped the captain had a _good_ reason for breaking up Commander Tucker's much-needed neuro-pressure session.

x x x

After their return from the Loque'eque planet and an ultimately amicable parting with the aliens who had tried to enforce quarantine so brutally, the captain gave her and Lieutenant Sato the day off. Although she did not generally feel the need for 'comp time,' as the Humans called it, in this case T'Pol welcomed it. The virus had not fully transformed her, but it had caused debilitating weakness and frayed her emotional control. It had also left her skin itching, and the cream Phlox had given her for that was so appallingly reminiscent of organic decomposition that she simply refused to use it. Indeed, she regretted even opening the lid to it.

But there was another smell, a more pleasant one, combating the reek of Phlox's ointment. Finally realizing its source, she stared down at the small black dish that sat open on her desk.

Of course. Tucker had apologized in the shuttle pod up to _Enterprise_ for entering her quarters and "stealing" her peach.

Couldn't he have at least closed the lid to preserve the stasis for the two remaining fruits? But perhaps he'd had more important priorities at the time. And the smell was welcome at this point, at least, so she left it open. She put a hand up to scratch her face, then pulled it back, determined to resist the urge.

Her comm chimed. "Tucker to T'Pol."

"Yes, Commander?"

"I was wondering if you might like some of that neuro-pressure for _yourself _at some point today. That couldn't have been pleasant down there."

She hesitated. _He_ was the one who needed help, not her. But that was perhaps not entirely true at the moment. There were nodes appropriate for treating the stomach and even the skin that were difficult for her to press properly. "That would be acceptable, Commander, when you have time."

"I have time now_,_" Tucker said. "I'd better come over before something else can interrupt us."

x x x

She had already changed into looser clothing, though not her pajamas, so she prepared for him by lighting candles. It gave neuro-pressure an appropriately serene quality, removed from their day-to-day life aboard ship - though it was not, unfortunately, enough to prevent day-to-day life from intruding on their sessions.

He came in with another peach. "Thought I'd better replace the one I took to Phlox," he said. "Assuming you like them, anyway."

"I did find the flavor pleasing," she said, and added it to the bowl, closing it properly and putting it away.

"So is that bothering you as much as it's bothering Malcolm?" he asked, grimacing in commiseration as he fingered the spot on his own face that corresponded to one of the rashes left on hers as the alien bumps receded.

"It is quite irritating," she admitted. "But I believe the Khavorta posture may help reduce the itching."

"Is that the neck one? I'm sure we'll have better luck with it on you. Vulcans wouldn't be ticklish, I bet."

"It is a simple matter of breathing properly."

"Simple for _you_, maybe. So tell me what to do."

He followed her direction to apply pressure below her ears. He focused on her neck as she instructed him, raising his gaze occasionally to check her reaction. She noticed, not for the first time, how strikingly blue his eyes were.

"That okay?" he asked.

"Hold it a little longer," she said, and closed her eyes to escape the disturbing intensity of his gaze. "That's it." She opened her eyes to find his still resting on her.

He turned a little pink. "What's next?"

"Shall we attempt it on you again?"

"Won't work," he said, his tone definitive. "I'm too wired."

"Wired?"

"Jumpy. Punchy. Too much coffee. Plus I have a bridge shift later." His blush intensified. "Let's just focus on you today, okay?"

"That was not my intent in accepting your offer."

"Come on, T'Pol. Sauce for the goose and all."

"Sauce for the goose?"

"This way I'll feel less guilty keeping you up at some ungodly hour next time it's my turn."

"There is no logic in feeling guilty. You require assistance and I am willing to provide it. Furthermore, Vulcans do not require as much sleep as…."

"Look, just humor me, okay?"

"Very well. There are nodes that help with digestion on either side of the sixteenth vertebrae." She turned away from him and lifted her shirt over her head, noticing his sudden intake of breath as she did so. As far as she could determine, bare backs were not considered particularly risqué in modern human society, but perhaps the knowledge that her breasts were now naked had shaken him. She knew that had sexual connotations in Commander Tucker's North American culture, though it was more accepted in others - and considered extremely taboo in still others. Earth's cultures were remarkably diverse for a space-faring species, which was perhaps an indicator of how quickly they had leapt beyond their own orbit.

Vulcans did not generally uncover their skin to any great degree either, of course, but that was because of climate and tradition rather than irrational inhibitions. If only to protect his sensibilities, however, she crossed her arms over her chest and cupped her breasts protectively.

He found the spot and pressed with three fingers on each hand as she instructed. "Thank you," she said, after a few moments. "That will help."

"Anything else?" he said. "What about that one to improve your sleep patterns?"

"Very well," she said, and guided him to the appropriate nodes further up her back.

That didn't take long either, especially since he now understood how hard he needed to press, and that he wouldn't push her off her bunk in doing so. It was most agreeable to feel the tension of recent days release and she couldn't quite contain a pleased sigh.

"Guess you really like that," he said.

"It is an agreeable sensation. Thank you." She tugged her shirt back over her head.

"That's it? Either you're easy or I'm hard."

"You do pose something of a challenge. Since we have time left, perhaps we could finish the session Captain Archer interrupted."

"I don't know … I really can't afford to get sleepy right now."

"I am certain that you will be able to maintain a waking state if duty requires it."

He sighed. "All right." He stood up and removed his shirt – he was back to one she considered less than aesthetically pleasing this time – and removed his shoes. "Can I ask you a question?" he said, as he turned to lie down on her bench.

In her experience that question from Humans generally presaged a more intrusive question. "What is it?" She rubbed her hands briskly together in case they were cold. It was interesting that he had transferred from her bunk to the bench. Perhaps there was yet another Human taboo involved in lying down on her bed.

"What's up with all the candles?"

"The captain gave me permission to use them, as you know."

"Yeah, but you didn't light them the first time we did this."

"It didn't occur to me to do so that time."

"Well… if I didn't know better, I'd think the ambiance was kind of … romantic."

Was he once again suggesting that she was making sexual overtures? Why this insistence on something so utterly unlikely? But perhaps Human males were not entirely capable of controlling their response to potentially sexual situations – such as her removal of her shirt. He was not, after all, the only crewman who sometimes manifested physical signs of sexual interest in her. "Candlelight and pleasant aromas help to establish a serene, meditative environment," she said. "The purpose of neuro-pressure is to _relax_ and _heal._ However, I will extinguish them if you feel that would be more appropriate."

"No, no – I like 'em. I just wondered. Agh! Are you trying to kill me?"

She quickly lessened the pressure she was exerting on his _latissimus dorsi_. "Deep, regular breaths," she reminded him. "Some pressure _is_ necessary if you are to receive any benefit."

"Okay, okay!" he said, and started breathing more carefully. She increased the pressure more gradually this time. Did all Humans store this much tension in their body, or was he unusual? It took a good ten minutes to begin to sense some release, and that was just in one muscle group.

He sighed in apparent contentment. "Even if you do kill me, what a way to go."

"I don't believe that you are in any actual danger," she said, moving her attentions further down his spine.

He moaned, apparently in pleasure. "I'm in danger of getting addicted to this."

She lifted her fingers from his back. "We can stop at any time."

"Please don't."

"Then I would suggest less talking and more breathing," she said, and he acquiesced.

As she worked, she considered his mention of addiction. There was certainly something oddly pleasing in eliciting such obvious pleasure from him, even if it seemed to be strangely confused with fears of mortality – or perhaps that was just another one of Tucker's perplexing figures of speech. It was surprisingly rewarding simply to have this close physical contact with another being, especially when the rest of one's life was generally so devoid of touch or intimacy.

Of course, it helped that Tucker was someone she found attractive and generally enjoyable to converse with. She suspected she would not quite so willingly help another member of the crew in this way.

So perhaps there _was_ some danger in this – perhaps either or both of them could develop a psychological dependence on this practice. That could become rather awkward.

But then, if Ambassador Soval was correct, they had little chance of surviving this mission into the Expanse.

T'Pol did not entirely accept that, but she had too much respect for her old mentor to totally discount his point of view.

In any case, at present she was prepared to live dangerously.


	4. Rajiin

**SPOILERS:** "Rajiin" and it may not make sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Rajiin" was written by Brent V. Friedman and Chris Black from a story by Paul Brown and Brent V. Friedman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Not a whole lot of romance here; there were questions I had about this episode that I figured they might have too.

Thank you as always, precious reviewers and of course beta **jT. **

* * *

Reptilians were ugly sons of bitches. Trip liked to think he was fairly open-minded about differences in alien physiology, but as he stared down at the corpse of this particular Xindi, there was just no getting around it. Of course, being dead probably didn't help the guy's looks.

He still hadn't seen a live Reptilian himself, but that wasn't true of a good chunk of the crew, now. It was pretty unnerving that they had been out here looking for Xindi, and instead the Xindi had found _them_.

Trip looked up from the dead alien on the examining table and looked around. Except for Phlox and this dead Xindi, sickbay was empty. "Where's T'Pol?"

Phlox didn't turn his attention away from the scan he was studying. "She's about as easy to keep in sickbay as you are, Commander."

"Then she's okay."

"She'll be fine."

That implied she wasn't fine _yet_. The last time Trip had seen her, she had still been out cold on a bio-bed, hands curled limply at her side. But that had been hours ago, when Phlox had dismissed him to get some rest in his own quarters. Clearly Phlox wasn't particularly worried, though.

"Cap'n asked me to meet him here," Trip said. He was a little irritated that the captain himself was _not _there. _Enterprise_ had taken enough minor damage to keep Engineering busy for days; Trip had things to do.

Phlox grunted, still intent on his scans. "No doubt he wants to me to share my autopsy results. I expect him momentarily."

The sickbay doors opened. Trip looked up, expecting Jon, and felt his stomach give a little nervous flutter as T'Pol entered instead, dressed in her orange cat suit. Whatever this was, it was getting really bad if he was actually having adolescent palpitations just because she'd walked in the door when he wasn't expecting her.

But that was a minor issue, really. To his keen eye, she looked a little fragile.

"I thought I told you to rest," Phlox said.

"The captain asked me to meet him here," she countered.

"And how does that qualify as _resting_?" Phlox sounded annoyed, but perhaps realized it was a lost cause, since he turned back to his scans.

T'Pol looked, blinking, at the dead alien on the table, but didn't approach it.

"Maybe you should follow the doc's orders," Trip said softly.

"I believe we may have more important priorities at the moment." She looked around. "I was expecting to see more patients here."

Phlox said, "I discharged the last one an hour ago. There were no major injuries except for Private Money's, and hers will heal. We were lucky."

Trip frowned at T'Pol, who also looked a bit perplexed. "I don't get it," he said. "They have no compunction about killing seven million innocent Humans on Earth, but they don't use deadly force when they board a hostile starship full of the same Humans?"

T'Pol said, "Perhaps this is a different group of Xindi. Or perhaps extracting their operative was their only goal."

"So maybe these Xindi are unusually single-minded?" Trip said. "Or maybe they're just kind of stupid? Because frankly I still don't get the point of attacking Earth the way they did. If _I _set out to destroy a planet, I wouldn't send a weapon that has no hope of doing the job and can be traced back to me."

The doors opened again and Archer entered, looking grim. He had an unfamiliar weapon with him, which he deposited on a counter before he moved over to the Xindi corpse. "She said they're working on a bio-weapon. That she was here to get information about us for their weapon. So my question is, did she manage to get it?" He moved closer to T'Pol, and his tone softened. "Do you remember anything?"

"I do," T'Pol said, clearly uncomfortable. "I believe she scanned my body … somehow." She swallowed. "It was … extremely difficult to resist. She possessed formidable mental abilities." Trip could swear she had paled as she spoke, and he noticed that Phlox had narrowed his gaze at the Vulcan.

Trip bit his lip. "But why even bother with T'Pol? I thought they wanted to destroy Earth, not Vulcan."

Archer said, "I don't know, but I don't think T'Pol was her only victim. She came to my quarters last night, too, and when she left I had a definite sense of confusion about what had just happened. And Hoshi described the same kind of encounter with her." He turned to T'Pol. "Do you suppose the threat of a bio-weapon that can kill Vulcans too might finally get your people off the fence?"

T'Pol said nothing, just lifted an eyebrow.

Archer said, "We still don't know if she actually got that information to the Xindi. Security only found a simple comm device when they searched her. Nothing that could hold or transmit large amounts of data."

"Remember what I said about her unusual eye structure," Phlox said. "It's possible she used her own brain, or perhaps a device embedded in it, to store any information she collected. Of course, without knowing more, it is hard to say for certain. In any case, I don't see how anyone can target a bio-weapon effectively without actual genetic samples to work from."

T'Pol said, "You wouldn't need a full genetic profile if you designed a weapon so pernicious in its effects that it could destroy _all _life it comes in contact with."

"But that would pose a serious risk to your _own_ people," Phlox pointed out.

Archer stalked the one end of the room, then turned and stalked back. "Maybe you don't have to kill them all. Maybe you could just transform them. We've seen that ourselves, with the Loque'eque." He suddenly paled and turned to Phlox. "She didn't get her hands on any of that, did she?"

Phlox went over to a box, which he opened and checked. "The seal hasn't been broken, Captain."

Trip looked on in some confusion. That terrible virus was still _hanging around sickbay?_

Archer sighed. "What I said before? Never mind. Destroy it."

"Happily," Phlox said. "Though, again, I doubt they could have used this successfully without great risk of infecting themselves."

Trip scowled. "Maybe they really are just kind of stupid." So was anyone who would keep that virus around. But maybe for the captain it was a hangover from having been Loque'eque … he really hadn't had very long to recover from that yet. Malcolm was still asking Chef for sunflower seeds.

He looked back at T'Pol. She'd had a rough time on that planet, too. And now this.

"Have you had a chance to inventory our genetic material yet?" Archer asked Phlox.

Phlox frowned. "No. I assumed the autopsy was a higher priority. But it won't take long, if you'd like me to do so now." He moved to a cabinet and pulled down a stasis unit, while Archer hovered over him. Trip moved next to T'Pol. "You look a little under the weather."

"The experience with Rajiin was … disturbing." She swallowed. "I have recovered, but I am still somewhat fatigued."

He lowered his voice to a near-whisper. "Would neuropressure help?"

She turned her lovely dark eyes on him for a moment. "Perhaps, when time allows."

"When time allows, then," Trip said, and turned back to wait for the captain and Phlox to finish what they were doing and get this meeting over with.

He was buoyed by the thought that whatever else he had to deal with today, or the next few days, some quiet time with T'Pol would come eventually.

And to think he'd actually suggested to her that they should stop. But then, he'd always been taught that a gentleman never did anything that might damage a lady's good reputation.

It had been such a relief that the lady didn't share his concern.

A relief, and also kind of interesting.


	5. Impulse

**SPOILERS:** "Impulse" and "Rajin" and it may not make sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Impulse" was written by Jonathan Fernandez  
from a story by Jonathan Fernandez and Terry Matalas.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Two missing scenes here, actually - one pre- ep and one near the end. And many thanks as always, reviewers and beta **jT. **Also, thanks to all at Triaxian Silk who tried to help me identify the movie from T'Pol's nightmare; ultimately I decided it didn't matter.

* * *

"This isn't working any better than it did the last eleven times," Trip said, quickly shutting down the attempt before they could blow up another set of equipment.

T'Pol shut her own equipment down and turned a cool look on him. "Agreed."

Trip began to pace in the small space they had set up on E deck. "Maybe this was really just another prong of their attack. One, send Rajiin to spy on us. Two, use the creepy chemist to see if we'll blow ourselves up, or maybe just drive ourselves mad trying to do something that can't be done."

"I can find no errors in the equations. Perhaps this fairly primitive equipment is not finely calibrated enough to maintain the proper protocols."

He scowled. "Don't suppose you've got some nice, finely-calibrated Vulcan equipment stashed somewhere that you could share with us?"

She just raised an eyebrow.

Trip leaned against the table in their makeshift lab and folded his arms. "Obviously, there's a reason people will kill and enslave each other to mine real Trellium-D ore in this Expanse. If it were really that _easy _to just synthesize it, they wouldn't bother."

"Do you believe we should tell the captain it is time to give up our attempts?" she asked.

Damn. Did he? "He'll be really disappointed."

"I believe he is already somewhat disappointed."

That was undoubtedly true. Archer had even stopped asking for status updates on the project.

Trip was thankful they hadn't traded anything more valuable than a case of spices for this damned recipe. Not that Chef saw it that way, of course. Trip was still getting dirty looks from the galley. _And _Chef hadn't made pecan pie even _once_ in the last month. _And_ Trip could swear he'd purposely started making his chili bland, even though Trip knew for a fact that there was still an ample supply of cayenne in stasis. He sighed. "Your staff hasn't had any brilliant ideas, I take it?"

"Ensign Rao said he thought it looked a bit like alchemy – which he then explained was a failed attempt over many centuries to turn base metals into gold."

Trip snorted. "In other words, we've been had."

"He did suggest that this tradition had at least helped build a useful base of knowledge and practice for the discipline of chemistry which would follow. Perhaps this will serve a similar purpose for us, especially if physical laws indeed function differently here in the Expanse."

"Perhaps," Trip said. "Personally I feel like we're just beating a dead horse. I think it's time to take a break."

There was a slight pause, possibly for her to process his figure of speech, before she said, "Perhaps an hour of neuropressure…"

"I mean a _real _break. As in, let's call this quits. We can always come back to it if one of us has an epiphany in the middle of the night or something."

"We are still having dangerous encounters with spatial anomalies."

"Well, frankly, I think at this point we'd better off if you focused your efforts on detecting and avoiding them than trying to come up with what is looking a hell of a lot like a mythical substance."

She stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she nodded slightly. "Agreed."

They worked quietly, packing away supplies and equipment. He was going to miss working with her. He suspected that might be a big part of why he'd delayed accepting reality.

As for her – well, _her_ reluctance to quit was probably just an example of dogged Vulcan determination, nothing more.

He wondered if there was something else he could come up with for them to work on together.

Or maybe he could get movie night going again. Before the Xindi attack she'd actually begun to attend those voluntarily once in awhile. Sometimes she'd even sit with him and eat his popcorn. And since Chef was one of the biggest movie buffs on the ship, it might be a good way to get back in his good graces, too. Besides, the whole crew was getting cranky. They could all use it.

x x x

T'Pol stared up at the ceiling of sickbay. Archer had refused to do what was logically required: leave her somewhere so the forward hull could be insulated with Trellium-D and protected from gravimetric distortions. It was a grossly irresponsible decision on his part, though the thought of being dumped all alone in the middle of the Expanse was also quite horrifying – but then her emotions were still in tumult, racing just beyond her control, blowing about unpredictably like leaves and brush in a storm.

"How's she doin', doc?"

_Commander Tucker._ Her heart leapt: He'd come to see her. But did she want him to see her like this?

"T'Pol is recovering well, Commander. But as I told the captain, it will be a few days before she is fully recovered."

"Can she have visitors?"

_Yes,_ she thought. _No. Yes, please. Send him in _now._ No, don't!_ Torn by conflicting impulses, she all but moaned in frustration.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Phlox said. "She really needs some rest in _a calm environment._"

"I can behave," Trip said. "How about just a short visit? She's going to miss movie night. I just wondered if she wanted me to patch it through here for her."

"That might be too much stimulation right now."

"It's a very light comedy," Trip said. "She can always turn it off if she doesn't like it."

"Well… I'll ask her." Footsteps came her way. "You're awake," Phlox said, smiling down at her. "Did you hear our discussion?"

"Yes," T'Pol said, gripping her blanket. She had been sweating so much as her body purged itself of toxins that Phlox had given up on providing her with dry pajamas and resorted to absorbent bedclothes instead.

Tucker followed right behind Phlox, which made Phlox frown in irritation. "How ya feeling, T'Pol?" Tucker said, with a brightness that seemed slightly forced. "Any better?"

"Yes, somewhat," she said stiffly. She suddenly wondered just how much he had seen of her … before … when she was completely out of control.

"So what do you think?" Tucker said. "Up for a movie? It's called _Road to Zanzibar_. An old Hope and Crosby flick ... you'll find it extremely illogical. But it's something to do, right? You can analyze it for Human patterns of irrationality or something."

"I don't know," she said, honestly enough.

"Well, let me give you the synopsis, and then you can decide," he said, and looked meaningfully at Phlox.

Phlox scowled. He said, "Five minutes, Commander," and left.

"So, it's what they call a _road movie_," Tucker said. "There's a whole series of them, and they're always about these two idiot guys who are buddies and rivals and always end up chasing the same girl."

She stared at him in utter incomprehension.

Tucker came closer. "You sure you're all right?" He'd lowered his voice. "I'm sorry about the _Seleya_. Cap'n told me you served on her yourself – even knew some of the crew."

That loss did ache, when she allowed herself to think about it. "There were many fine crewmen aboard, but they were … no longer themselves."

He sighed. "I guess it's a damned good thing we never managed to synthesize any Trellium-D, huh?"

She frowned. "The captain is wrong not to avail himself of such a useful substance during such a critical mission."

"Yeah, well – you're pretty useful during a critical mission, too. I would have made the same decision he did."

"It would be much better for the ship if I had left when the High Command told me to."

"Don't be ridiculous. You get us out of all sorts of scrapes. Not to mention you're keeping me going. You gotta know that sleep-deprived chief engineers can get into all sorts of trouble. I probably would've blown up the warp drive by now if you weren't here."

"I doubt that." Her throat felt thick, choked with emotion.

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked softly. "Maybe sneak in a little neuropressure while Phlox isn't looking?"

She shook her head. His touch would be a comfort, but far too stimulating in her current state. Besides, Phlox would return any second.

Tucker smiled sadly down at her. "Well, I guess I'd better let you rest. _Do_ you want me to patch through the movie?"

Her eyelids felt heavy. She did need to rest. "Perhaps another time."

"Fair enough. Anyway, if this one goes over well, we'll run the whole series." He briefly squeezed her hand and his voice turned a little husky. "Feel better."

She nodded and let her eyes drift shut, all her being focused on the faint psychic echoes of his touch – embarrassed, hesitant tendrils of concern and warmth and affection that were distinctly Tucker.

It felt like water in the desert.

And oh she was thirsty_._


	6. Exile

**SPOILERS:** "Exile" and it may not make sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Exile" was written by Phyllis Strong.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I was going to take a little break before the semester, but I snuck this one in anyway. My beta appears to be unavailable, so I'm just flying solo. Many thanks as always, you (wonderful, generous, rare) reviewers.

* * *

She could not stop pacing.

She knew the bridge crew was watching her, no doubt puzzled by her atypical behavior. It would certainly be preferable for her, as the person in command, to sit in the captain's chair and radiate a useful calm.

But then that had never stopped Captain Archer from pacing, either.

She couldn't shake a terrible anxiety that something had gone wrong, and she now understood – for the first time – how this otherwise pointless movement could somehow help reduce those disturbing feelings to a more manageable level.

She had felt something very odd earlier – a sudden odd spike of surprise and consternation – and looked around only to see everyone calmly working at their stations. The strange sensation had passed quickly, some time ago now.

Time which was surely more than sufficient for two men in good health to gather any necessary scans.

She took a slow, steady breath, desperately trying to reach her usual state of confident self-possession. That odd sensation had obviously been just another random surge of feeling, an after-effect of her recent exposure to Trellium-D. For the last week she'd suffered continued unpredictable swings of raw emotion. In fact, they had actually _worsened_ in the last two days. Since this seemed to fly in the face of logic, she'd theorized that it might be because the benefits of neuro-pressure had been unavailable to her.

Just as Ensign Sato had been temporarily exiled from her shipmates, T'Pol had been temporarily exiled from the one shipmate who knew how to soothe her.

Mr. Tucker had been preoccupied with insulating the shuttle pod. He wouldn't come near her, despite her suggestion that the work must be tiring and warranted a session. "It's hard to get that stuff completely off," he'd told her. "It's not worth the risk."

It now struck her as quite a minor risk indeed, compared to disappearing behind a sphere's cloaking barrier, completely cut off from _Enterprise_'s sensors or communications. Even if Archer and Tucker _could _call for help if they needed it, there was no way _Enterprise_ could survive the locally intense levels of gravimetric flux long enough to rescue them.

They would have to insulate another pod, which would take at least 36 hours.

Should she get a team started, on the off chance it might actually make any difference at all?

"_Archer to Enterprise."_

She turned and all but dove at the helm, their comm. station this shift. "We're here, Captain."

"_It was right where you said it was, T'Pol. We got all the scans you asked for."_

He sounded jubilant. And he'd said _we_. "You took longer than we expected."

"We took a little damage on the way in, but nothing we couldn't handle. I'll tell you all about it when we're aboard."

In the background, before the connection shut, she could distinctly hear Tucker say, "Don't tell her _everything._"

x x x

Once again she came her door in that silk robe. Apparently she considered pajamas normal wear for neuro-pressure. Trip wondered whether he should inform her that this was the kind of thing that could give a guy the wrong impression, but decided that would be stupid. One, she obviously wasn't giving neuro-pressure to any other guy. Two, she might stop wearing them.

"You're sure it's not too late?" He couldn't help a cautious look up and down the corridor. _He _might know she was up to nothing but a little helpful massage, but any crewman who saw her greeting him like that…

"Is this not the usual time?" She stepped aside to let him in.

"I had Phlox put me through a decon cycle, just to be sure. He says I'm all clear."

What he had assumed would be welcome information did not even seem to register with her. She said, "Shall we begin?"

_Yes, ma'am._ He took his shirt off, then his shoes, and could have sworn that her eyes got darker as she watched him.

_Did _she usually watch him do that? He hadn't noticed it before. "Bench?" he said.

"Please."

She didn't pause to warm her hands, as she usually did, just launched into the first posture. Fortunately, her hands were not cold this time. Rather warm, in fact.

"That feels great," he said, between careful breaths.

She said nothing.

Was it his imagination, or was her technique a little different tonight? She held each position longer, spread her fingers wider, almost as if she was seeking as much contact as possible.

It felt nice, but he began to feel concerned when she didn't respond to any of his conversational gambits with anything more than instructions for the next posture.

"You all right?" he said.

"I'm fine," she said calmly.

"You're kind of quiet."

"Breathe," she said, and then had him sit up for the _Surah'tahn_.

Had he done something wrong? Was she still mad about earlier? She'd glared at him upon their arrival at the bridge, and stiffly informed them during the subsequent meeting in Archer's ready room that she had heard Mr. Tucker's comment, but saw no reason why they couldn't make a _full_ report to her.

"Oh, me neither," Jon had said, for he was clearly delighted to share the story of Trip's little misadventure with the port thruster.

"I was just jokin' about not telling you everything, you know," Trip said now. "Though I suppose I _was_ kind of hoping I could ward off future warnings from you about accidentally sparking something…"

"Without the pod you would have run out of air in less than five hours," she said abruptly.

_Huh?_

He sat there, breathing by rote, and wondered why the hell she would say that. _Every _away mission had an element of danger. For her to be pointing that out, as if in reproof, felt completely wrong. It was almost as if she had actually been worried or something. No, that wasn't it … for he was convinced she _did _worry, in her repressed Vulcan way, much as anyone in command would.

But for it to be _this _obvious … for her to actually _betray_ that…

Damn.

It was the Trellium-D, wasn't it? It had to be. Maybe it hadn't fully cleared her system yet. But it was already a whole week after the _Seleya_. Had she perhaps been permanently affected?

"How 'bout some neuro-pressure for _you_?" he asked carefully, trying to sound as neutral as possible, trying not to suggest that she was in any way impaired.

"I would appreciate that," she said. "Since … the _Seleya_ … I have found neuro-pressure most helpful in maintaining my emotional control. Apparently it will take some time to properly process the extreme emotions I experienced."

He nearly sighed in relief. Of course. That made sense. And she was aware of it, which meant she would handle it. _Was_ handling it. "Always glad to be of service," he said lightly, as she turned her back to him and began to work the buttons of her shirt.

He took a breath and placed his fingers in the correct position on her luscious back.

Oh yes, he was definitely glad to be of service.


	7. The Shipment

**SPOILERS:** "The Shipment" and "Impulse" and it may not make sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "The Shipment" was written by Chris Black and Brent V. Friedman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **While I think I may prefer the rationalizations for Trellium-D that T'Pol uses in my story "The Sick Visit," for this series I decided to stick to the reasons she gave us on screen.

Many thanks as always, reviewers and beta **jT. **

* * *

That night, after all the debriefings and the strategy session about how best to search for the Xindi ship and its marked cargo of kemocite, Trip was more than happy to go to T'Pol for their neuro-pressure session. She was being unusually quiet, so he just lay there, enjoying the sensation of the day's built-up tensions being systematically released from his back, and let random thoughts float up.

Unfortunately, some of those random thoughts made him want to tense up all over again. It irked him deeply that he'd lost their Xindi weapon. Could he have done something differently that would have kept it intact?

That thought was followed by another that hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. "T'Pol. When I said we didn't have time to go find a nice empty asteroid, why the hell didn't you point out there was a nice empty moon right outside the ship?"

She didn't pause even slightly in the pressure she was delivering. "We were hiding behind the moon in the hope of not being detected during a delicate operation on the planet. I didn't consider that sending an away team to the surface was wise, given the possibility of having to flee from or engage the enemy at a moment's notice."

"Oh." Good point. One he should have thought of – like the presence of the moon in the first place. In the Expanse, it paid to consider all the worst-case scenarios. After all, using the second shuttle pod to collect Trellium-D ore had nearly gotten the away team on the _Seleya_ blown to smithereens.

He sighed, and then returned to the proper breathing pattern before she could tell him to. At least T'Pol seemed to have finally recovered from her exposure to Trellium-D. Her hands no longer lingered in their ministrations, but moved efficiently from one posture to the next.

It was good to see her back to her old self.

Was it awful of him that he also kind of missed the messed up version?

She said, "In retrospect, I should have insisted you run your test in the lab on deck E."

Damn it. _That_ hadn't occurred to him either. His game had really been off, hadn't it? On the other hand… "That's a lot further from the transporter, though, so I suppose we could be dead right now. Or pretty badly mangled, at least."

"That would be unfortunate."

Unbidden, he felt a giggle rise. "Yeah, that would be unfortunate." He just couldn't help it; he started laughing outright.

She drew back. "This amuses you?"

But by then he was practically crying he was laughing so hard. In a distant part of his brain, he knew this was probably a form of hysteria, but it felt so great that it was only the certainty that she would call Phlox if he didn't stop that finally calmed him down. He wiped his eyes and said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just … I don't know. Such an understatement, maybe? Or maybe it's because this is how insane our life is now?"

After all, in the Expanse a guy had to be thankful for small favors, like not being scattered into fragments across space yet. "I know it's not logical."

"Indeed. Are you sure you're quite well?"

He rolled on his side and smiled warmly at her. It was nice to know she didn't haveto be whacked out on Trellium-D to be concerned about him. "I'm fine. Once in awhile a good laugh just feels really ... good."

She was silent, which didn't surprise him. How could she possibly relate to that? And yet… "So you _really _never have the urge to laugh?" he asked. "Not even secretly? Tiny little well-contained Vulcan giggles no one can hear?"

Her response was predictably prompt and flat. "No."

No, of course not. What was he thinking? "Well, for Humans, it's … I don't know … a good way of blowing off steam, or something."

"I see." Clearly, she didn't.

He licked his lips. Surely they could achieve at least a tiny measure of common ground on this? "So maybe you'd never need to blow off steam, but you _do_ have a sense of humor."

Her two eyebrows drew together in apparent consternation. "I beg your pardon?"

"Come on, admit it. I've seen both you _and_ Soval throw zingers around like they're going out of style."

At her puzzled expression, he said, "Zingers. You know, sarcastic remarks."

Her face cleared. "Ah. Sarcasm from Vulcans is not humor. It is commentary."

He nodded. "Right. Very dry humorous commentary."

"_Ironic_ commentary, perhaps."

"Yes. And irony is _funny._"

She appeared to consider this. "I suppose Humans may find irony funny. Vulcans do not. However, I have often noticed that it can help one to make a point without resorting to direct reproof, which is seldom received well by your species – or, indeed, by most sentient beings."

He sat up. She had abandoned any pretense of continuing the neuro-pressure, and arguing with her often inspired him to seek some height advantage. "You know … I don't believe you. I _know_ you get jokes. I can see it in your face. You just don't let yourself laugh, that's all."

She stared at him as if he'd just told her the entire universe revolved around Earth. "While I do indeed often recognize the creative word play and unexpected juxtapositions that are typical of much Human humor, it does not follow that it generates an emotional response of any kind in me."

For some reason that felt just like a slap in his face. "So what are you saying? That you just use your understanding of Human humor to try to manipulate us into doing what you want us to do?"

Now she looked puzzled. "If I did, it would be for your own benefit."

"Well, that's heartwarming." He stood up and headed for his shirt.

She stood up, too. "I don't understand. Have I offended you?"

"No," he lied, and slipped his shirt back on. Where were his damned shoes? Oh, right. He slipped those on, too. "I'm just … I'm really tired. I think I'd rather just go ahead and hit the sack."

"Very well," she said, though she looked so utterly at a loss that Trip felt a little stab of pity for her, which didn't make sense since a Vulcan sure as hell wouldn't want that. Maybe it was really pity for _himself_. It was sometimes all too easy to forget the gaping cultural – _and_ physical – _and _mental divide that stood between him and their beautiful science officer.

It was probably good to be reminded periodically, so he could try harder to stop thinking about her in ways he really shouldn't. "I'll see you tomorrow night," he said, instinctively offering her reassurance she shouldn't need.

It wasn't her fault she was so clueless, after all.

She nodded, eyes wide.

Damn it. Why did she have to look like that? Sometimes she just plain confused the hell out of him.

"Well, thanks, and good night," he said, offering a quick smile – yet another reassurance she really shouldn't need – and left.

x x x

T'Pol dressed carefully and walked in measured strides down the corridor to the launch bay. She had already determined that the crewman who would normally be standing watch there was in a status meeting in Engineering. She should have at least a few moments' privacy.

There it was. She walked there quickly and spread her hand on the forward hull. Commander Tucker's team had done their usual professional job – it was not obvious at all that there was any Trellium-D under the new grey surface paint. But she could feel a dull throbbing start up, a faint echo of the disconcerting waves of sensation and out-of-control feelings that had overcome her on the _Seleya_.

Feelings that were at once disturbing and enthralling.

Though terrifying, they had opened up her perceptions of herself and her fellow crewmen in ways she had never experienced before. After her stay in sickbay, they had surged and faded unpredictably over a period of days … only to disappear completely in the end.

She had returned to normal; Phlox had certified her free of any ill effects. But her recovery gave her the sense of having been marooned in a flat, dry, colorless place where no Human would ever wish to go, a place where she no longer saw and felt and understood, a place where she could never again thrill with fear or excitement or desire.

A place where she no longer felt connected to rest of the crew. Or to _him._

She stretched out her other hand, and leaned against the pod. Yes. There. Already, she could feel emotion stirring: a profound longing that was at once painful and sweet.

She would try just a _small_ exposure. Another thirty seconds, that was all. Just enough to bring _some_ sensation back.

Not enough to do any harm.


	8. Twilight

**SPOILERS:** "Twilight" and it will not make sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Twilight" was written by Michael Sussman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Because I am not a big fan of reset buttons, I decided that the reset button for "Twilight" would have one glaring imperfection. The temporal physics of that may be dead wrong, but I feel no compunction to be more generally scientifically plausible than the show is.

Many thanks as always, reviewers and beta **jT. **

* * *

Lieutenant Reed's voice said, "Bridge to Commander T'Pol."

T'Pol opened her eyes. She was sitting on her meditation cushion. In her cabin. On _Enterprise_.

Which, therefore, still existed.

She rose to her feet quickly – noting a twinge of pain in her ankle as she did so - and went to the comm. "Go ahead."

"Commander Tucker just reported in that the damage to the starboard nacelle is fairly minor. Repairs should be complete within five hours. He also wanted me to pass along his opinion that this means there is absolutely no reason to cancel Movie Night tonight."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." She looked around her cabin again.

Their utter destruction at the hands of the Xindi had seemed so real.

She dressed, noting a rather large green bruise on her ankle where it had become trapped by wreckage this morning. Fortunately, the swelling had gone down and it was not difficult to fit her foot into her shoe. Phlox had tended to the captain first, diagnosing him with a concussion before determining that her ankle was only bruised and sending her off with a recommendation to stay off it for a few hours until the anti-inflammatory hypospray he had given her could do its work.

So, after briefing Tucker and Reed, she had gone to her cabin intending to spend the time in meditation.

Instead, she had spent twelve years living through catastrophe. The captain had lost his short-term memory, Earth had been destroyed, and she had ended up in a refugee camp on a desolate planet, nursing an endlessly addled Archer until a tiny sliver of hope – the arrival of Phlox with a cure - had instead led to the end of everything.

And now? All was well.

Or was it?

Had the captain awakened yet? She decided to go to sickbay. Arriving at the turbo-lift doors, she distinctly remembered how they hadn't been working – that the bridge had been blown away. Captain Tucker and the rest of the bridge crew had been lost. The Xindi had boarded and …

Could this be the beginning of some terrible repeating temporal loop?

If so, was she now somehow armed with knowledge that could prevent the same outcome?

Or had it simply been a dream? A very long, detailed, painful dream? The kind of dream that Vulcans who meditated properly never had?

Perhaps her recent experiments with Trellium-D were affecting her more significantly than she had thought.

Of course, in the dream she had given up the Trellium-D immediately. She'd had too much responsibility, and there was no point in any case. Tucker had blamed her for their fate – at least at first – and no amount of Trellium-D would have made any difference in that. He had warmed to her again, but by then she'd had other obligations.

She swallowed and squared her shoulders and went into sickbay to meet her fate.

"How is he?" she asked Phlox.

"Ah, T'Pol. How is your ankle?"

"It's fine. The captain?"

"Still sleeping. But as I said before, I'm not concerned. It's just a mild concussion."

"Have you scanned for trans-dimensional parasites in his brain?"

Phlox turned and stared at her in surprise. "No. But perhaps I should have scanned _you _more thoroughly."

"I am perfectly well, doctor. According to my reading in the Xindi database, cerebral infection with parasites from a domain outside normal space-time is a rare but possible consequence of exposure to anomalies." That was not strictly true, but she needed a reasonable explanation for her next request. "Please scan carefully for any unidentified objects in his brain. Call me as soon as you have any results."

x x x

The captain was absolutely fine, Phlox assured her. There was nothing there that shouldn't be there. If anything, he would likely be peeved that Phlox was going to keep him overnight.

"Yes, he was looking forward to the movie," T'Pol said. "Let me know when he wakes."

And although the captain seemed fine when he awoke, she wasn't entirely convinced that they were safe yet. It didn't help when Archer told her she'd make a great nurse.

x x x

Tucker came in for his neuro-pressure session later that night with, "Why didn't you come see _Rosemary's Baby?_ That's a real classic."

"I read the book instead," she said. "I suspect that one has to be willing to believe in the possibility of a satanic power at work in daily life to fully appreciate it."

He took his shirt off and headed for the bench. "It's called 'suspension of disbelief', T'Pol. You temporarily accept a far-fetched premise, as long as the work maintains some sort of internal logic. It's not that you have to _really_ believe the premise. It's just … a fun way to stretch your imagination. Or, I don't know, to think about the meaning of life or something."

"And what did _Rosemary's Baby_ tell you about the meaning of life?"

He chuckled. "I think that one might fall more into the category of just having some scary fun. Or maybe that it might be a good idea to watch out if your husband and neighbors start acting weird."

She began with his back, as usual. He always carried more tension in his spine than anywhere else. As she worked she leaned forward, softly inhaling his scent. Despite the captain's apparent good health, her dream or hallucination or whatever it was continued to bother her.

At least partly because in it, she had lost _this_.

"Vulcans don't have any myths or stories or literature or anything?" he said. "All you ever read is Surak's wisdom and scientific reports?"

"We still read pre-awakening literature, primarily from a historical and anthropological point of view, although there are a few language scholars on Vulcan who will argue for an appreciation of them on a purely aesthetic basis. There is also a tradition of poetry devoted to the illumination of small moments of understanding that might otherwise go unremarked. And there is a strong tradition of children's literature - primarily allegorical tales designed to encourage logical reasoning and good citizenship. But for Vulcan adults, engaging with fiction as Humans do would not be considered a respectable use of one's time."

"But you read _Rosemary's Baby_."

"I determined that reading it would be faster than viewing the movie."

"But you didn't _have_ to read it – or view it – at all." He sounded as if he thought he'd caught her out.

"As someone who lives and works on a Human ship, it behooves me to at least attempt to understand Human entertainments. But I will admit that it was also quite … suspenseful."

She felt rather than saw him smile. "You know," he said, "Being able to imagine a whole range of possible scenarios can also be useful from a tactical point of view."

"Indeed. Vulcans often employ what-if scenarios in their strategic planning."

"Well, just think of our stories as extended what-if scenarios. Only they're more fully imagined, with characters you can relate to."

"How would relating to fictional characters help in strategic planning? If anything, I would expect that to prove distracting."

"I don't know," he said, with a sigh. "Maybe we really just enjoy being distracted."

She had him sit up, facing her, and began to work on his shoulders. He smiled at her and closed his eyes, as he typically did if they were not talking. She had long ago concluded that he was not entirely comfortable looking at her in such close quarters; quite often, if she caught his eye, he would blush. "This morning I imagined a scenario in which the Xindi destroyed Earth," she said.

His eyes snapped open. "What?"

"In this scenario, the captain's head injury resulted in a total loss of short-term memory, which left him incapable of command. The eventual results of this were catastrophic in the extreme."

He just stared at her.

She said, "I take it _you_ did not imagine anything like that this morning?"

"I was too busy with repairs to imagine anything except how nice it would be to have Jupiter Station next door. But even if I did have time, why the hell would I want to imagine _that_?"

"I don't know. And I have never imagined anything at that level of detail in my life," she said. "I have been wondering if I was the only person aboard who had this experience."

"What are you saying, T'Pol?"

"It was most peculiar. It felt extremely real. It certainly did not have the quality of mere musing."

"Maybe you were dreaming?"

"I was not asleep. I was meditating."

"Well, perhaps you fell asleep meditating without realizing and just … had a really bad dream. You were probably worried about the cap'n … it could happen."

"Vulcans don't dream."

He frowned. "Maybe Vulcans in the Expanse do. You should probably have Phlox take a look at you."

She said nothing. She could hardly explain that she did not welcome that option because she had begun to experiment with ingesting small quantities of Trellium-D in order to better relate to her Human colleagues.

He squinted at her. "T'Pol?"

"I will consider it," she said, and finished her work on his shoulders. "Particularly if I experience any more highly detailed … imaginings. The Khavorta posture now."

"And then it's your turn."

She nodded her agreement, and focused on the pressure points on either side of his neck while he breathed and watched her with fairly obvious concern.

Eventually she turned and unbuttoned her shirt so that he could reach the correct nodes on her back. His touch was particularly welcome tonight.

In her dream, or hallucination, or whatever it was, Tucker had eventually apologized for his initial reaction to her maneuver with the ship, but their command relationship had continued to be fraught with tension, perhaps because of the truly desperate situation they were in. Their neuro-pressure sessions had also ceased under the pressure of more urgent priorities, and never resumed.

All this, of course, had only made it easier to make the logical decision to go to the planet to care for Archer.

"I have my reasons," she'd told him, at the time.

"Do you love him?" he'd asked, shocking her.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"I don't know. Maybe because suddenly I feel like throwing up."

"Commander?"

"I don't want to have to do this without you."

"You were quite willing to do it without me when you urged me to return to the safety of Vulcan. You've completed all our major repairs, and you are eminently well-qualified for this position."

"That's not what I'm talking about," he said. "Can't we … come on, T'Pol. Can't we at least talk about this?"

"I've made my decision."

The look on his face that day had haunted her for years. Eventually, she heard that he had begun a relationship with a MACO, Corporal Cole. As much as that information had pained her, she had assumed it was for the best. She did not want him to be as lonely as she was.

"T'Pol?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not releasing at all."

"I apologize," she said, and took a proper breath. "I lost focus."

"Well, get it back."

"Yes sir."

He snickered softly, and bent to his task again.

_Focus __on this moment__,_ she told herself. _Appreciate it while you can_.

x x x

Later that night, after Tucker had left, she stared down at the piece of Trellium ore in her hand. Timing her exposure to the shuttle pod had proved problematic because the launch bays were generally manned by at least one crewman. Therefore she had obtained a piece of ore that she kept in a stasis unit in her quarters. Simply holding that small piece of unrefined ore had not had the effect she desired, so she had made a weak decoction of the mineral to take internally. So far that was proving sufficient to keep her in tune with her crew mates without provoking any unfortunate symptoms.

The dream was the first suggestion that it might be having a negative effect on her neurology.

What the dream also suggested, however, was that a purely logical version of herself, unaffected by Trellium-D, would choose a bizarre half-life with an impaired Jonathan Archer over the warm companionship of a man who could at least be counted on to remember what she'd said to him the day before.

She knew that some Humans believed that dreams were messages from their subconscious, or even from a higher power. There could never be hard scientific proof to back up this belief, of course, but for the first time in her life she thought she understood the appeal of such reasoning.

In any case, she prepared another dose, and then she took it.


	9. North Star

**SPOILERS:** "North Star" and it may not make sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "North Star" was written by David A. Goodman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **If you look at this episode, Trip and T'Pol had a hell of a lot of time to hang out together off camera, much of it on a horse. And I figured it was time for a little comic relief.

Thank you as always, kind reviewers and beta **jT. **

* * *

Riding horses was not nearly as easy as it looked in John Ford movies.

Trip's instinct, when their horse's pace slowed so much they might as well have walked, was to pull back on the reins: _come on, girl, get on with it._ After all, to go faster in a shuttle, you pulled the throttle back.

But the horse stopped.

They were about midway between the Skagaran settlement and the shuttle pod, in yet another miserable dry planetary landscape.

And this horse was making him look bad.

He tried shaking the reins. Nothing. He leaned forward and crooned, "Come on, sweetheart. _Go!_ _Giddyup_."

The horse tossed its head, but stayed put.

"I believe the general technique is to 'spur' the horse with those items projecting from the back of your boots," T'Pol said. "To slow or stop a horse, I believe you '_rein_ _it in_'."

"Oh, yeah," Trip said. "Rein it in. Right." No wonder the horse had stopped. "But I'm not entirely comfortable sticking _spurs_ into a dumb animal." Especially with them sitting this far off the ground.

"Then why would the costume of this era include spurs?"

He scowled. "Are you certain you can hang on if she suddenly takes off?"

"I believe the term you would want to use in that case is '_whoa_'."

Cautiously, he tapped the side of the horse with his legs. No spurs yet. The horse sidestepped and stopped again.

Damn, he hoped that guy hadn't given them an ornery horse. He gave the horse a more forceful squeeze with his legs; he still had profound doubts about that spurring idea. This time the horse started up again, at a reasonably fast walk for the terrain.

"That's more like it," Trip said, settling back and making sure once again that his ankles were down in the stirrups. He remembered from some Zane Gray novel he'd read as a kid that you were supposed to do that to avoid being dragged by a horse that bolted. He thought about explaining this to T'Pol just to show that he wasn't completely ignorant, and maybe also to emphasize the idea that a horse _could_ bolt, but decided he'd better not. For all he knew, Zane Grey had been the pseudonym of a genteel lady novelist in a Philadelphia brownstone who had also assumed you could learn how to ride a horse from watching John Ford movies.

At least T'Pol hadn't suggested they trade places yet. That would be truly mortifying. He said, "So how do _you _know anything about horses?"

"I once read a monograph about 'cowboy' culture that was disseminated by the Vulcan embassy in Sausalito. Ambassador Soval believed that this might help us better understand the customs and language of the Humans who populate North America."

He squinted out from under the wide brim of his hat at the glare of this barren planet's endless drab terrain: rocks, scrub, more rocks. "Did it?"

"It did improve my understanding of some colloquialisms in standard English, such as 'horse trading,' 'horse of a different color,' 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink' and 'rode hard and put away wet."

Trip choked. "What?"

"Rode hard…"

"I heard you, I just … has anyone actually used that one around you?"

"I once overheard then-Commander Duval use it in reference to a waitress in the 602 Club. As I recall, Captain Ramirez responded rather emphatically that he ought to keep that opinion to himself."

Duval was a jackass. He sure hoped it wasn't Ruby he was talking about. "Yeah, well, it wasn't very polite of him."

"It implies that someone has been worked unreasonably hard, does it not?"

"Mmm. Yep, that's pretty much it. You'd only ever say it about a woman, though."

"Why is that?"

"Well." He coughed. "It kind of has sexual connotations."

"The monograph did note that sexual innuendo could also be present in some 'cowboy' colloquialisms, such as 'in the saddle'."

Trip swallowed desperately. "Yep."

"So that would not be polite either?"

"Well. It depends on how it's being used. For instance, _we're_ in the saddle here, but that's just because we're literally sitting in a saddle. Nothing rude about that. As far as the other saying – well, unless you're _literally_ talking about a horse that hasn't been properly groomed after a hard ride, which frankly doesn't come up all that often in daily life … well, it implies that a woman has been used for sex without, you know, any regard to … the niceties."

"‛The niceties'?"

Oh God. Just shoot him now. "Are you sure we're still going in the right direction?"

There was a pause while she checked the scanner and he racked his brain for a better distraction. Where was one of those 'sand vipers' when you needed it?

Of course, with his luck, it would probably be humping another sand viper.

"Our course has not deviated," she said. "In any case, this trail appears to be well-traveled."

"Yeah, it looks like there's a fair amount of traffic back and forth. I wonder why that is?"

"You haven't explained 'the niceties'."

_Damn it._ "Well. I guess… originally, it would probably mean that the guy had the proper intentions."

"Which would be…?"

"That he was planning to marry her, I assume. Especially if she got pregnant. Today, it might just mean that a guy has some sincere feelings for the lady. Or at least, that they were both in agreement about what the deal was. In other words, that he didn't just take advantage so _he_ could have a good time without…." Suddenly he became extremely conscious that she was right there, holding onto him – clinging, practically – and felt himself flush hot. "…well, making sure that she did, too." He shook his head slightly. How the hell had he once again ended up lecturing their Vulcan science officer on Human Sexuality 101?

"Why would a man concern himself with that?" She sounded surprised.

"What do you mean, why? Don't you think it's the least he could do?"

"It's my understanding that copulation significantly reduces blood flow to the brain."

_No kidding._ "Well…" Trip sighed. "A gentleman can still manage to employ some … skill. Some finesse. He can at least delay his own satisfaction long enough to figure out what she likes. Or if he's lucky, she'll just tell him."

There was a long silence. Apparently, he'd finally left her speechless.

"So…" He cleared his throat. "Are we anywhere near the place yet?"

"Another 3.2 kilometers," she said.

They plodded along until he began to find the silence just too uncomfortable. "Does this planet remind you of Vulcan at all?" he asked.

"No. It is much more temperate, and the gravity is also much lighter."

He grimaced. Vulcan must be truly unbearable.

Suddenly she said, "I don't believe Vulcan men would be likely to concern themselves with their mate's pleasure."

"No?" Did this mean she'd never had sex with a Vulcan man? It sure sounded that way. Either that, or she'd only had _bad_ sex with a Vulcan man.

"I cannot say for certain, because we never speak of such things."

"You're speaking about it with _me_."

She said, "You are correct. I apologize."

"For what?"

"This conversation has been quite inappropriate, by Vulcan standards."

It was a little dicey by Human standards too, but he decided he wouldn't say anything about that. She sounded pretty rattled. "I won't tell anyone if you don't."

"I would appreciate that."

Probably it was his imagination, but it felt to him as if she tucked herself in behind him just a little more snugly.

Why _did _they get into these conversations, anyway?

The only reason he could think of was that she must trust him, on some level at least, and the thought made his heart swell with affection for her. He wished he could show her just what he meant by how a gentleman should treat a lady.

_But, Tucker, that's crazy._

But then again, what wasn't, these days?


	10. Similitude

**SPOILERS:** "Similitude" and it may not make sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. "Similitude" was written by Manny Coto.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **No comic relief this time. This is the only episode of _Enterprise_ that can still make me cry (even after seeing it six or seven times). This must also be one of the most-written about episodes in Ent fanfic, so my apologies if I've accidentally replicated aspects of someone else's work.

Thank you as always, kind reviewers and beta **justTrip'n.

* * *

**

What was driving T'Pol crazy was that she didn't know if those feelings were Commander Tucker's, or Sim's.

Once Sim had grown to adulthood, she'd found it very hard to maintain a distinction between the two. Sim had Tucker's memories – however inexplicably – so it followed that she was dealing with a version of their chief engineer – a man who retained all of the original's personality. If anything, she suspected his essential nature had been heightened by the brutal situation he found himself in.

When she went to his quarters, she hadn't really thought about _who_ it was she had gone to see. She'd only known, suddenly, that it was intolerable that this man should have to go to his death without knowing that he also meant a great deal to her.

She'd offered to go with him to sickbay, but he'd smiled grimly and said, "I don't think that's such a good idea." He'd kissed her again, a little more hungrily than the first time, and then he'd pulled away and left.

And that was that.

Of course kissing him was extremely inappropriate, for many reasons. But she couldn't regret it, for it had clearly pleased him, and surely he deserved some small measure of joy if she could provide it to him. What she hadn't expected was to experience it as such a heady mixture of pain and pleasure herself.

And now Commander Tucker was recovering, thanks to Sim's sacrifice.

But Commander Tucker also kept surprising her with his distance.

At first, he'd been extremely weak. Phlox had enlisted her help early in the first morning after his surgery to help the commander do some walking. The attempt at a circuit around the deck had left him pale and sweating with exhaustion. He'd said he had to go back, and upon their return to sickbay he had crawled onto the bio-bed and curled his body away from her and the doctor. He hadn't asked her about the engines or his staff, either, though she had given him a report anyway. She wasn't sure he'd actually taken it in, since it had clearly taken supreme effort for him simply to put one foot in front of the other.

And that was, of course, before the captain had explained to him about Sim.

After that, every time Tucker looked at her – or at any of them, really – she had the impression that he was a man staring warily at strangers.

The second night, while he was still in sickbay for observation, she'd asked him if he would like to resume their neuro-pressure sessions. "Thanks, but I don't think I'm quite up to that yet," he'd said, with a polite smile that didn't match the bleak expression in his eyes. "Besides, I've had more than enough sleep lately."

The day after that was Sim's service. She wasn't sure why the captain had delayed that until Tucker could attend. Tucker had looked confused and ill, and most of the crew also appeared uncomfortable with his presence there.

What if, by saving Tucker, they had somehow lost him?

There was no logic in that question; still, she couldn't help fearing that in some unspoken way he was gone – that he had pulled away not just from her, but from the whole crew, and had no intention of ever coming back.

She did not know if she would have had these perceptions without the Trellium-D, but she suspected she would have known something was off about him, even if it would not have caused her the peculiar anxiety she was feeling now.

She missed him. Every night since the accident, she had missed his company during neuro-pressure: his smell, his touch, his intelligence, his curiosity, his unique observations about their daily lives. And every day she had missed his presence, not just as chief engineer, but as someone she could go to whenever she needed insights into Captain Archer and other members of the crew.

She also missed Sim, who had so bravely told her how he felt.

"Is it possible the commander has some of Sim's memories now?" she asked Phlox the day Tucker had been discharged to recover in his quarters.

"Why do you ask?"

"He seems rather unsettled."

Phlox frowned. "Near-death experiences will unsettle anyone. And this particular near-death experience was … _extremely_ unsettling, I should imagine."

"Seeing oneself lying dead in a torpedo tube must also be rather disturbing, for a Human."

The Denobulan glanced at her, then looked away. He had also become more distant in the wake of Sim's death; T'Pol assumed he must be dealing with a certain amount of grief of his own, or perhaps feelings of guilt. He didn't look up from his work as he said, "The commander has had a great deal to digest, unquestionably. Whether that includes memories from his clone, I could not say. He certainly hasn't volunteered anything about it, and when the captain told him about Sim, he struck me as quite genuinely shocked. However, I don't understand how Sim came to have the commander's memories, so I suppose anything is possible. Perhaps you should just ask him."

x x x

Trip lay on his bunk and stared up at the ceiling of his bunk and wondered what it must have been like to be a clone whose sole purpose for existence was to donate vital parts to the original version of oneself.

Especially if he remembered _being_ that original self.

Though Sim clearly had been different, too. When Trip had returned to his quarters with Malcolm's help, they'd discovered small changes made in Trip's absence. Some pictures were out of place, and a few data files had been scattered on the desk instead of neatly put away. Also, Malcolm told him Sim's favorite pie was key lime. Trip had gone off key lime pie years ago after he'd combined two big slices of it with a truly regrettable combination of beer, tequila, and some fruity drink Lisa had decided she couldn't stomach.

His bunk had been neatly made, but it had dog fur on it. Apparently Sim had enjoyed Porthos' company. Trip liked the little guy, too, but it had never occurred to him to have him over for a visit.

So. A clone and the captain's dog, here in his quarters. A clone who was ultimately treated far _worse_ than the captain's dog. He remembered how completely loopy Archer had gotten when Porthos was ill, after he'd peed on some sacred tree. There was no trace of that loopiness in the captain now – he was just a grim-faced man who had done the unthinkable.

How the hell could Jon live with himself?

But perhaps it was not really fair to ask that. Jon clearly _was_ having trouble living with himself - had been for some time now - but the mission came first, as it always would.

"T'Pol was all right with this whole thing?" Trip had asked, eventually, after Jon told him.

Jon had scowled. "Not exactly. She made sure I knew how unethical it was. And illegal, at least in the Lyssarrian Prime Conclave."

"But she didn't stop you either."

"No, she didn't stop me. I know it was a morally questionable decision. I won't be surprised if there's hell to pay for it someday. I'll deal with it when and if I have to. But I can't regret it, Trip, not when I see you back with us. And we have more important priorities, as you well know. I can't say for certain that I wouldn't have done the same _without_ a whole planet depending on us, but it sure as hell made the decision a lot easier. I need you out here. It's that simple." He'd patted Trip on the shoulder. "So do what Phlox tells you so you can get back to duty as soon as possible, okay?"

He'd nodded_. _Yes sir. Aye, aye, Cap'n. Back to duty, sir.

It had at least been a comfort to be touched – proof that yes, he was still real, he did exist – especially when that existence seemed somehow much more precarious than it had before.

Except for Malcolm's oddly soothing company – he'd somehow known to just be there, without pushing anything more than his presence – and especially after the bizarre experience of watching a dead version of himself get shot out of a torpedo tube – Trip still felt distinctly un-tethered from all of it: from this second chance at life; from this crew, who had known and apparently now mourned a different version of him; from this mission, which had become the excuse for doing yet another unspeakable thing.

The door chimed and Trip sighed and got himself out of bed. He still felt tired and woozy, and although Malcolm's company earlier had been a godsend, he really preferred to be alone right now.

But it was T'Pol.

T'Pol, who had told Archer cloning him would be unethical and illegal. T'Pol, who had nonetheless stood by and let it happen. T'Pol, who had kept coming to sickbay and had somehow seemed more freaked out by him than anyone else. Trip wasn't sure what bothered him more: that she had argued against saving him, or that she had let Archer save him, or that she was clearly struggling with _something_ that had to do with him, although he didn't know what.

"T'Pol," he said.

"Commander."

And then he just stood there and stared at her, and she stared at him, and he thought _say something_, but nothing came.

She said, "Do you have Sim's memories?"

That wasn't what he was expecting at all, so he stepped back – which allowed her to enter – and said, "What?"

"Sim had your memories. I wondered if you also have his, now that some of his neural matter has been transplanted into your cerebrum."

What the hell kind of a question was that? "Why, are you writing a _paper_ on me?"

She drew back, clearly hurt, and he wondered just when she had become so easy to read . . . or so sensitive, for that matter. Her tone was dry as Vulcan dust, however. "Hardly, Commander. I don't believe that publicizing what occurred here would likely serve anyone's best interest."

"No, probably not," he agreed, and went back to sit on his bunk. "So why are you asking me if I have _his_ memories?"

"I was concerned. . ." She hesitated, clearly having trouble.

Tucker stared tiredly at her, wondering why he was feeling so hostile.

She crossed her arms. ". . . I was concerned that it might be a source of some discomfort to you."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure it would be," he said. "But I can't say I recall any memories that don't seem as if they ought to be there. But hey, if something pops up, I'll be sure to let you know."

Her eyes widened. She turned to go, and he knew he'd offended her, which was, if he was honest with himself, exactly what he'd wanted to do. "T'Pol," he said, before she got to his door. "I'm sorry. I'm … having a little trouble with all this."

She didn't look at him, just paused before the doorway. "That's understandable." And then she opened the door and left.

Trip sighed unhappily and fell back on his bed. Her voice had sounded strange - a little choked, even. Which was all wrong for her. But he was too tired to wrestle with that mystery. Too tired and too hurt. She was Vulcan; she'd figure out how to deal with it somehow. Maybe meditate, maybe read a little Surak . . . he was sure she would soon take any excess feelings that escaped that magnificent control of hers and stuff them away somewhere, never to be heard from again.

But him? He had a piece of a dead clone's neural matter in his cerebrum, as she had so clinically put it.

He might _never_ be himself again.


	11. Carpenter Street

**SPOILERS:** "Carpenter Street" and "Similitude" and it may not make much sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Carpenter Street" was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **It's not an easy episode to shoehorn Trip and T'Pol into, but I did my best. Thank you as always, reviewers and beta **justTripn. **

* * *

Reed's men had finished loading the Xindi artifacts into Cargo Bay Two – T'Pol had directed them to use the corner furthest away from the Trellium-D containers – and she had sent the three corpses to sickbay the doctor to process appropriately. Now Tucker and Reed were discussing how best to secure the items while she gazed distractedly over at the container of Trellium-D ore she had been quietly pilfering over a period of weeks.

She couldn't help wondering what she would do if the captain wanted to post a guard here.

"You know, maybe you shouldn't be in here," Tucker said, startling her, though she hoped she had not betrayed that reaction with a physical response. "That's Trellium ore over there."

"I know. However, I am not concerned."

He squinted at her in obvious confusion. "Why not?"

"I would feel the effects before it could do any permanent harm. And at the present time I feel no ill effects. I believe the stasis containers are quite effective."

"Yeah, well, why push your luck? Especially when you could let me and Malcolm handle this." He suddenly grinned. "Besides, you could use the time to make some sense of this duty roster." He held it up, clearly hoping she would take it.

She raised an eyebrow. "How much of this request stems from concern for my well-being and how much from your well-known distaste for the duty roster?"

"I'd say it's about fifty-fifty." He continued holding it out to her. "Come on, T'Pol, you know you're a lot better at this than I am."

Allowing herself a slight frown, she took it.

He smiled. "Thank you."

"I believe the appropriate Human phrase in this situation would be 'you owe me'."

"Fair enough," he said. "Now why don't you scoot? I'll let you know when we're done here."

With a nod at the room's only other current inhabitant, Lieutenant Reed, she walked out into the corridor. She expected the captain to arrive at any moment from his discussion with Phlox, however, so she decided she would simply work on the duty roster in the corridor.

As usual, it was simply a matter of making minor adjustments due to unexpected disabilities, such as Ensign Masaro's unfortunate accident in the gym involving one thumb and two hand weights.

Also as usual, Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed were underestimating the range of her Vulcan hearing, although in this case she supposed they might reasonably have concluded she had left the area. This could explain why Reed did not even attempt to lower his voice as he called out, "So does our first officer look hot in leather, or what?"

"Malcolm." Tucker's tone was half-warning, half-amused.

"You don't think she looks hot?"

"She's always hot. Vulcans have a higher body temperature than we do."

"That's not what I meant."

"I _know _what you meant."

"And?"

After a moment, Tucker said, "I _was_ kind of tempted to ask her if she knew she was wearing tanned animal hides, but I decided I'd better not."

She looked down at her jacket in surprise. She had assumed the quartermaster would know better than to offer something that offensive to a Vulcan. Apparently she had assumed too much. Or perhaps Tucker was wrong. In her experience, Humans often felt compelled to shape synthetic materials to resemble others. This particular substance _did _appear to have unusual heft and durability, however, as one might perhaps expect of a creature's preserved epidermis.

Inside the room, Reed said, "Exercising your better judgment when you could have a poke at T'Pol? That's not like you."

"She'd just tell me it was the perfect way to blend into our primitive culture."

"I guess there's no need to argue with her anymore, if you already know what she's going to say."

There was a long silence. Perhaps Tucker was as nonplussed as she was by the lieutenant's observation. T'Pol pulled out her scanner and scanned the sleeve of her jacket. She was disheartened to discover that it was indeed made from the skin of a dead animal. She resisted the urge to free herself from it immediately; such haste was hardly logical now.

She would have to emphasize that particular Vulcan taboo to the quartermaster. Unfortunately, the quartermaster was, in Tucker's own words, "a bit sensitive."

Maybe _he _could explain it for her. It would pay his debt over the duty roster. Which, she suddenly realized, she still hadn't completed. She turned back to the task.

Inside the room, Tucker said, "I think the best solution here is to set up a secure partition. Hand me that scanner."

There was a long silence, during which T'Pol checked to see if any crewmen had logged shift change requests. And yes, once again Crewman Rostov and Crewman Kelly were requesting changes that would put them on the same duty shift. She made a mental note to consult the commander about it.

"Actually," Tucker said, "I think T'Pol's been avoiding me, since, well … since I came back to the land of the living thanks to a dead clone." Another sigh. "I think I may have said something that was less than polite."

"You? I'm shocked."

Reed's ironic tone was surely warranted. Tucker had remained prickly and reclusive for days after waking from his coma. However, she was hardly "avoiding" him. She just had no particular reason to see him.

Reed said, "Actually, it might not be you at all. When he was a teenager Sim had a pretty obvious crush on her."

She frowned in consternation. Of what relevance could that possibly be?

Inside the room there was nothing but silence.

Finally, Tucker said, "And you were going to tell me this _when_?"

"I didn't think it mattered. As he grew older, he got over it, or seemed to. And they worked together all the time. If it was ever an issue between them, I never noticed."

Another long silence.

Reed was correct. Except for making it clear that he had feelings for her, Sim had never pressed the issue. He had been, as Tucker himself had so often put it, a 'perfect gentleman'."

Reed's voice came again: "Why don't you just ask her about it?"

"I'm sure as hell not going to ask her about THAT."

"Well, what in God's name _do_ you talk about during all those 'neuro-pressure' sessions?"

"We haven't had any since the accident."

"You haven't? Why not?"

This time she actually turned to the door, eager to hear the answer.

Tucker said, "She asked me early on when I was still kind of … you know, freaked out at the whole clone thing … and I said no."

"So tell her you've changed your mind."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"One, I'm sleeping okay, for the most part. So it's not like a matter of life and death. Two … I just can't. Maybe she likes not having the smelly Human in her quarters every night. It'd be like I'm inviting myself over to dinner for the twenty-fifth time in a row. At a certain point, it's just rude."

"What's rude to us might not be rude to her. Besides, she could just say no."

Silence. Lieutenant Reed was being most logical. Not that she _would_ say no. A well-rested Chief Engineer was a significant benefit to ship and crew.

Also, she missed him.

Reed's voice turned sly. "Maybe _that's_ why you haven't asked."

Tucker ignored him and instead got on the com to his department, requesting that Lieutenant Hess detail two crewmen to construct a set of security panels with specifications he was now transmitting.

Reed said, "And I can't imagine she would say no."

"Look. Why don't we just focus on the job at hand, okay?"

"Aye _aye_, sir."

"And put that damned smirk away."

"Any surprises?" The captain had arrived.

T'Pol turned, startled once again. She usually heard and smelled him approaching, but only now did she become aware of the strong odor of beagle intermixed with Archer's own unique scent – which had, thankfully, been greatly reduced by a shower and a change into a fresh uniform.

"None that I am aware of," she said.

Archer was looking a little oddly at her, perhaps because of how he had found her, situated towards a closed door.

"Commander Tucker suggested I should not spend too much time in the same room as the Trellium-D," she said. "He also asked me to look over the duty roster."

Archer chuckled. "Smart guy. Why don't you go ahead and finish it while I check in with them? I'll see you back on the Bridge after you've had a chance to change."

"Agreed," she said, pleased at the opportunity to remove the repulsive jacket.

x x x

Late that night, when yet another evening had passed without any appearance or word from Tucker about neuro-pressure, T'Pol sat in front of her monitor and composed a message: _Commander, I believe it is past time we resumed your neuro-pressure sessions. Please let me know when you are available._

His reply came almost immediately: _I don't want to take up too much of your personal time,T'Pol, especially when I'm sleeping pretty well again. How's three times a week sound? MWF?_

She was tempted to point out that if he were indeed sleeping well, he would be _sleeping_ rather than responding to a message at 2400 hours. But instead she typed: _Agreed._

Three times a week was hardly sufficient, in her opinion, but apparently it would have to do.


	12. Chosen Realm

**SPOILERS:** "Chosen Realm" and it won't make any sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Chosen Realm" was written by Manny Coto.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is a bit of a departure from my routine, but hopefully you won't mind it. Thanks to all reviewers (blessings be upon you). And thanks to my beta justTripn for being puzzled by my first draft, which I had written from Archer's POV, since I think this one is much better.

* * *

Trip hated debriefings.

Across from Malcolm, at Jon's right, T'Pol sat straight and remote. Her report was unusually wooden, especially when she came to her moment of ineffective resistance to the Triannons as they targeted their enemies. If it hadn't been for the existence of the bridge recording, he wondered if she would have even mentioned it.

"I understand _why_ you tried to stop them, T'Pol," Archer said. "But I'm not sure it was wise under the circumstances. You could have been killed."

She gave the captain her blandest look. "I calculated that the risk was minimal."

Trip grimaced. From the recording, it didn't look as if she had calculated _anything_.

Archer didn't look convinced, either, but he moved on to Travis's own attempt at resistance, quickly countered by the weapon held to his head.

"You did the right thing, Travis," Jon said. "I hope I don't need to remind any of you here…" – his eyes flashed Trip's way for a moment – "…that Earth's survival might well hinge on _our _survival. Let's save any heroic sacrifices we have in us for the people who are counting on us back home."

Trip glanced at T'Pol; she glanced back, mouth tightening just a fraction. Sometimes Jon's sanctimony about the importance of this mission got a little old. And it was a bit much to be reminding them about avoiding risk when _he'd_ volunteered for a death sentence. How could he have known they would fall for the transporter trick? Or that he would be able to take the ship back practically all by himself?

They viewed more of the recording. At his right, Malcolm began to detail, with some relish, how the bridge had been recovered from D'Jamat.

"Seems like good work all around," Archer said, summing up. Trip wondered if anyone _else _at the tablewas wondering what would have happened to them by now if Yarrick hadn't just happened to be willing to betray his spiritual leader. But he sure as hell wasn't going to raise the point. It might make the meeting longer.

Archer turned to Hoshi, who was sitting next to T'Pol, across from Trip. "Have you made any progress with the database?"

Hoshi looked calm and collected. Trip reflected that she had matured into a very sturdy officer. "We should be able to retrieve portions of it from the redundant memory core," she said. "It's impossible to determine just how much, yet. T'Pol and I already have a subroutine running a search. Then it will just be a matter of putting those pieces back together in some kind of useful way."

Perhaps only Hoshi would make a task that gargantuan sound so simple. Jon smiled warmly at her, and Trip wondered, not for the first time, if their captain might be carrying a quiet little torch for their comm officer.

Of course, he'd never admit it if he did. Jon never talked about matters of the heart unless he could make it sound like a joke – like that woman (what was her name? Paula?) who'd gotten so furious at Jon down in Alice Springs that she'd poured a beer in his lap.

And the captain sure as hell wasn't going to admit to having a thing for an ensign in his command, especially one who was twenty years younger. Hell, he'd never even mentioned Erika Hernandez to Trip, and Trip knew from multiple sources that _that _one had been pretty serious.

Which was fine. He and Jon weren't really on such intimate terms that Trip would want to discuss any of his deepest feelings with him. Especially lately.

T'Pol said, "We also have data on various individual PADDs that we can use to repopulate sections of the database."

"Oh, good," Jon said. "Keep me apprised on our progress with that. Now, let's talk about how we can prevent something like this from happening again."

Naturally, Malcolm – after grudgingly noting that he had incorporated some input from Major Hayes – eagerly launched into his own analysis of where their security measures had fallen short and suggested a number of steps they could take to prevent it in the future. One of them involved requiring mandatory scans of all visitors to the ship.

Phlox quickly objected, citing medical ethics.

Trip, trapped between the two, tried to contain his impatience. He had things to do in Engineering – like providing a reassuring return to routine for his traumatized staff.

Meanwhile, he noticed that T'Pol was staring at him. He straightened in his seat and gave her a small, grim smile of commiseration. When she continued staring at him, he raised his eyebrows in silent query: _What?_

She looked over at Travis and then back at Trip, her head still subtly inclined towards the helmsman.

Travis had hunched so far back in his seat, all but curled in on himself, that Trip had to lean forward to see him. It wasn't surprising, really: their sunny helmsman had been made an unwilling party to murder. You didn't just shake something like that off your back in a moment … not if you were Travis, anyway.

He nodded back at T'Pol. _Okay, message received._ He'd talk to him.

She gave him a tiny nod of acknowledgment, and then turned her attention back to Phlox and Reed.

Thankfully, the captain had finally heard enough. Archer told them, "I'd like you both to work on a new passenger scanning protocol. It doesn't have to be intrusive – and I don't believe we should have to ask permission to protect ourselves. Make it something automatic, something that simply notifies us of the presence of any anomalous readings in a new arrival's bio-scans."

Phlox said, "Just how do you define _anomalous_?"

Trip sighed. Phlox didn't dig his heels in very often, but when he did…

Archer didn't let himself get drawn in. "You and Lieutenant Reed work that out and report back to me with your recommendations."

Trip raised his eyebrows at the captain: _So can we go?_

Jon scowled back at him. "Well," he said. "At least after this afternoon we shouldn't have to worry about the Triannons anymore." He looked at each of them and sighed. "Is there anything else?"

Trip prayed Malcolm wouldn't have any more brilliant security ideas.

When no one responded, Archer said, "Very well. Good work, everyone. Dismissed."

Trip got up, eager to intercept Travis, who was already stalking towards the door.

"Trip, stay a moment," Jon said.

Trip shared a frustrated glance with T'Pol, who frowned slightly, but left with the others.

"Is everything all right?" Jon asked, when the room had emptied.

"Cap'n?"

"You seem a little … grumpy."

_Grumpy? _"Just eager to get back to work, sir."

Jon tilted his head. "Something is clearly bothering you. So, what is it?"

Why did Jon suddenly care what _he_ thought about anything? "Maybe you should be a little more worried about Travis. He's obviously having a hard time with this."

"Yes, I noticed that. And I plan to talk to him."

Trip nodded slowly. "Okay."

"You don't think that's a good idea?" Jon said.

"It's fine, sir. I was just … I was thinking perhaps a little moral support from someone who … isn't the captain … might be helpful, too. "

Archer's eyes narrowed and Trip's heart sank. He recognized the look as Jon on the trail of something. The captain said, "Have I been failing to give appropriate moral support to someone, Trip?"

"No, sir."

"You, for example?"

"No, sir."

Archer just waited.

Trip scowled. He hadn't exactly enjoyed waking up and discovering he'd been cloned, but there was no way he was bringing that up. "Okay, so maybe I didn't enjoy running my engines on behalf of a nutcase terrorist."

"It wasn't for very long."

"It _felt _pretty damned long."

Archer nodded. "Yeah, I know. It couldn't have been easy for you, or for T'Pol and Travis, having to cooperate with them."

Nice of him to notice, but what the hell did it matter now? Trip took a deep breath and let it go. At least Archer had noticed. That was more than he'd usually done, lately. "Is that all, sir?"

"Actually, no. Apparently there are quite a few rumors circulating about it, so I was hoping you could tell me a little about this 'Vulcan neuro-pressure'."

Trip felt his stomach drop. "Sir?"

Archer's face was utterly neutral. "I hear you're spending quite a few evenings with our first officer. And I could see you two practically carrying on a separate conversation over the table there."

_What?_ "She was just pointing out what was going on with Travis. You should be pleased that she's getting better at noticing these things."

"She is getting better," Jon said. "She's a lot more in touch with the emotional side of things, lately. It's kind of a striking change, really."

Trip frowned. He hadn't really thought about it much, but Jon was right. "Maybe she's just … I don't know … assimilating. She's been with us for over two years after all."

"And this neuro-presure?"

Trip felt his face get hot. "It's nothing, really. She's just helping me sleep. Phlox asked her, because I was asking for too many hypo-sprays. There's this technique Vulcans have…" He explained, conscious that he was perhaps babbling in his nervousness. Not that there was any reason to be nervous.

Finally, he just shut up and waited. Archer stared appraisingly at him for a few moments. "She's a very attractive woman, Trip. Smart. Brave. Exotically beautiful. I could see where a guy might be tempted."

This was so unfair! "She's a _Vulcan,_ Cap'n, " Trip said. "A _Vulcan!_ Even if I _was_ interested, which I'm _not,_ she'd never consider doing something that unprofessional. Besides, they only mate every seven years, remember? _And_ she thinks we smell bad."

"Actually, she told me she was used to it."

When the hell had she told him that? "You know, _you_ actually spend a lot more time with her than I do. I just see her three hours a week for neuro-pressure." It was true. T'Pol had been avoiding engineering lately. He wasn't sure why, but it had become noticeable.

Jon said, "Look. I'm not saying something like that would be completely out of bounds … on a long, isolated mission like this … if that's something you really want to do. That's assuming you can handle it with some degree of discretion, obviously. I just …" He sighed.

"Sir?"

"I just want to know what the hell is going on with my own command staff," Archer said, suddenly looking very tired. "Not every little thing, obviously, but serious relationship shifts that could affect this mission, yes. Can you do that for me? Keep me informed?"

Trip stared back at him. Had he just been given _permission?_ "Jon. Nothing's going on. I swear. She'd never…" He shook his head and waved his hand in the air. "She'd just _never_." It was true. "She won't even call me Trip."

Archer smiled ruefully. "All right. Sorry I had to ask. Dismissed."

Trip all but ran out the door. He wanted his engines like a drowning man wants air.

Everything else in his life was just too damned weird right now.


	13. Proving Ground

**SPOILERS:** "Proving Ground"

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Proving Ground" was written by Chris Black.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Thank you as always, reviewers and beta JustTripn.

* * *

When Commander Tucker showed up for neuro-pressure that night – ten minutes late – the first words out of his mouth were, "You know, I really ought to be in engineering right now."

She resisted her first impulse, which was to tell him he was welcome to leave. The Trellium-D had helped her understand her Human crewmates better, but it had also left her more easily affected by their comments. She had discovered that she often had to engage in what the Humans called "biting one's tongue" in order to avoid giving an unduly emotional response. Indeed, she did not always succeed at this, which had earned her some odd looks from the captain and others in recent weeks.

She was also conscious that her standard excuse for such overtly emotional reactions – her failure to achieve sufficient meditation in the Expanse – was perhaps wearing a little thin.

"Surely the repairs can continue in your absence," she said, instead. "Especially if neuro-pressure will allow you to return to them in a more rested and capable state."

"It's not the repairs I'm anxious about – it's the Andorians. So far they've been a big help, but we know how touchy they can be. All I need is for Masaro or somebody like him to run his mouth and suddenly our new allies will be flying off in a huff … and I'd really hate for that to happen before I've got my hands on that new variable compression antimatter injector Shran promised me."

She decided not to repeat her concerns about Commander Shran's sudden desire to be so helpful; she had a feeling Tucker would be just as nonplussed by her suspicions as Archer had been. "You have concerns about Ensign Masaro?"

"Well … apparently he's got some sort of bug up his ass about aliens," Tucker said. "I don't _officially_ know this, mind you, but that's what I've been hearing. So I asked Hess to keep a close eye on him while I was gone."

T'Pol had learned some time ago that having 'a bug up one's ass' was a colloquialism that suggested an unreasoning negative opinion about something. She reviewed her own interactions with Ensign Masaro, but could not pinpoint any moments of animosity. True, she had occasionally noticed him watching her rather speculatively, but it had not struck her as particularly unusual.

"Breathe," she reminded Tucker, and he did.

The session lapsed into silence punctuated only by his careful breathing, her orders to change postures, the hum of the ship's systems, and the occasional sputtering of her candles. And in the long, unaccustomed quiet, it was impossible not to notice that Commander Tucker himself was being much quieter than he had been in the past.

She waited, curious to see how long it would take before he came up with something to say, but he seemed quite unconcerned by the silence they were sharing. Perhaps he was busy thinking about Andorian variable compression antimatter injectors.

Or perhaps his comment in engineering the day before about her "avoiding" him was a clue to the source of his new reticence.

"I believe you may have been partially correct yesterday," she said.

It took him a moment to react. "About?"

"You suggested that I had been avoiding you."

He tensed under her hands. "And you said that giving me neuro-pressure three times a week was hardly avoiding me."

"Indeed. Upon reflection, I believe it would be accurate to say that I have been avoiding _engineering_."

There was another silence; the muscles of his back remained tight. "And why would you do that?"

"I spent a great deal of time there while you were incapacitated," she said. "The captain put me in charge of repairs. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to get the warp drive back online in time to save the ship."

"Are you saying that returning to engineering reminds you of a personal failure?"

"No. I did the best I could. It would be illogical to expect better than that."

Clearly she had perplexed him. "Then…?"

"Your staff reported to me for almost a month. I think it is probably best to allow them to readjust to your command without my presence distracting them."

"I'm pretty sure they can handle that transition without undue trauma," Tucker said. "Actually, I'd been wondering if maybe it had something to do with Sim."

She felt her own muscles tense. "Why would you think that?"

"Well… I'm told he had a fairly obvious crush on you."

T'Pol swallowed, conscious of a suddenly accelerated heartbeat and a strange fluttering in the area of her stomach.

Tucker turned and gave her a crooked smile. "I bet you didn't even notice, did you?"

She strove to maintain an even tone. "I wouldn't say that. As an adolescent, he was rather persistent in requesting I join him for meals."

Tucker's smile turned a little pained. "Oh, boy. Did you find a way to let him down gently?"

"I simply pointed out that the crisis we were in required my full attention."

Tucker shook his head and turned away again. "Ah, T'Pol, you broke his poor little heart."

That struck her as quite unfair. "Given his relative age at that time, encouraging such a relationship would have been profoundly inappropriate. Nor did he appear to be unduly affected by my rejection."

Tucker just nodded slowly as if this didn't surprise him.

She wondered what Tucker would say if she told him what a much older Sim had confessed to her, or that she had kissed his clone. The idea of putting it 'out there,' as the Humans would say, was at once exhilarating and terrifying. She wouldn't have to carry around that knowledge alone anymore. She supposed it was possible she might even provoke a similar confession from the commander.

Or he might be horrified, or embarrassed, or angry, and then she might lose these evenings with him again.

Even if he reacted with interest, the end result would most likely be the same. A romantic relationship with Commander Tucker was not appropriate and never really could be.

So clearly it would be more prudent to say nothing.

"T'Pol?"

She suddenly realized that her hands had stilled on his back. "I apologize, Commander. I was distracted."

"Yeah, I noticed." He turned to face her, his face serious. "Did you like him?"

She stared back at him, her heart pounding. He was all but inviting her to say it, wasn't he? But it was a still a bad idea, for all the same reasons. "I believe we all liked him," she said.

His face clouded; he seldom appreciated an evasive answer.

"He was just like you, Commander," she said, impulsively offering him more than she normally would, if only to make up for what she had withheld. "And you are, as you must know, very well-liked."

His cheeks turned pink, and he resumed the correct posture, his back to her again. "Thanks," he said softly. "That's nice to hear."

Yet if this was indeed something he found agreeable, she couldn't help wondering why his manner struck her as so disappointed.

For one brief, irrational moment she considered leaning forward and kissing the back of his neck just to make it clear once and for all just how profoundly she liked him.

But the moment passed, and she did not.


	14. Strategem

**SPOILERS:** "Strategem," but only in the most peripheral way.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Strategem" was written by Michael Sussman.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Well, you knew Amanda had to come into this equation sooner or later. I decided to take a break from the routine and use her point of view for this episode. Thanks to beta JustTripn and of course also to you generous reviewers – I welcome any feedback, positive or negative.

* * *

Amanda slumped over her cocoa in the mess hall – nobody was around, so she didn't need to project professionalism – and wondered whether living aboard a ship in deep space could give a person a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Certainly there was a lack of real sunshine.

Or maybe this was just normal holiday depression. Not that she was usually depressed during the holidays. She loved the holidays. She just didn't expect to love _this _one. Her life as a MACO corporal hadn't always allowed her to be home for Christmas Day, but up to now _sometime_ during the season she'd always managed to get back for a home-cooked meal and presents and hugs and the simple joy of relaxing amid one's own family – something she doubted anyone would take for granted this year, when so many families had lost it.

But this year she and her comrades in arms were as far away from home as any Human had ever been, on duty that combined the long, day-after-day tedium of Major Hayes' stultifying training routines with occasional episode of brutal combat. There would be no trips home this Christmas season.

Not that she didn't want to be here. This was their best effort to ensure that the Human race and all its holidays and all its families were not about to be annihilated by some crazy ass alien species that had apparently taken what sounded like some wacko Bible story from the future way, way too literally.

At least the scuttlebutt on the ship tonight was that they had discovered where the weapon was being built, which meant that now they could go get it. The terrible boredom should be ending soon.

Unfortunately, this also meant they probably would all be dead soon. _Enterprise_ was just one ship, just one crew, against a whole civilization bent on destroying them. The Xindi had already proven their ability to whup their asses pretty much at will. Nobody was talking about it out loud, but Amanda didn't think she was the only one on board who expected it would take nothing less than the sacrifice of all their lives to have any impact at all on this particular contest.

So it didn't look particularly good for any future holidays that might make up for how crappy this one was looking to be.

The door whooshed open and she straightened up. Hayes wouldn't want her to let the team down by looking depressed in front of anyone else.

It was the ship's yummy chief engineer, Trip Tucker, looking adorably rumpled but also unusually intimidating. He stalked to the cabinet to get a mug, stalked to the beverage dispenser for a cup of "coffee, strong," and took a sip before he even noticed she was there.

When he did, he raised his mug and gave her a grim smile. She raised her cocoa mug back at him and gave him the same grim smile back.

She wasn't sure why, but when it came to leisure time there seemed to be an invisible line drawn between Starfleet and MACOs. So she certainly wasn't expecting him to walk over. But he did.

"Corporal Cole," he said, gesturing at an empty chair. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out."

"I don't believe I've ever seen you alone in here. You MACOs always seem to eat together."

"Oh, you know how it is, sir. We don't want to mix with the riff-raff."

He snorted. "So, what are you doing here all by your lonesome now?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."

"I know that feeling. Phlox has some excellent hypo-sprays for it."

"So I've heard. Apparently our science officer can offer relief as well."

Tucker scowled. "Yes, she can definitely help, too. I see that even if you avoid mixing with the riff-raff, you still hear all the same rumors."

"Yes, sir, I believe we do," she said with a smile.

"It's called Vulcan neuro-pressure, actually. It's … I dunno … I guess the closest Human equivalent would be acupressure or therapeutic massage, or something like that. It really does do wonders."

"I'm sure it does."

He looked irritated. "I'm serious, Corporal."

"Of course you are, sir. Perhaps you could show me sometime."

His face flushed charmingly pink. "I've only been doing it a couple of months. I'm not sure how good I'd be at it. I could ask her if maybe _she _could…"

"Sir, there's really no need for that," Amanda said quickly. "I don't get insomnia that often."

"She doesn't bite, you know."

"No?" She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

He smirked, thankfully at least partially amused by her insinuation. "You're very bad, Corporal. All I can say is that the rumors you've been hearing must be vastly overstating the matter. T'Pol and I are just close colleagues and … friends."

Did he have the slightest idea how sad he'd looked as he said that?

She sat up straighter, all her senses suddenly engaged. Commander Tucker was enamored of their first officer. That was widely rumored, and here was the evidence right in front of her.

But T'Pol was Vulcan. So she wouldn't be interested or perhaps even capable of responding to him.

Which meant that their lovely chief engineer must be quite sad, and frustrated, and lonely.

Just like Amanda.

"I heard another rumor, Commander … that you're from Florida. So am I."

His face lit up with interest. "Really? Where?"


	15. Harbinger

**SPOILERS:** "Harbinger" and it won't make any sense without it.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Harbinger" was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Some of you know that I have already written Harbinger and post-Harbinger fics. My Commander Tucker series (after "… Has a Baby," which is AU) is a canon-friendly series featuring a whole mess of missing scenes from the tortured relationship of Trip and T'Pol. This time around, I've decided to take a somewhat different tack (and yes, I plan to continue, as long as I can keep it sufficiently different, hopefully not only from my own work but from everyone else's). So we'll see if you like it. There is an NC-17 version of this in Decon at Triaxian Silk, but I wouldn't get too excited about that – it's really just a little more specific. Thank you as always, reviewers and beta JustTripn.

**CONTENT WARNING: **(Non-explicit) sex and rude language.

* * *

What the hell?

T'Pol was naked.

T'Pol was kissing him.

T'Pol had her hot, coppery Vulcan tongue in his _mouth._

He kissed her back, of course – there was no fighting _that_ natural response. Indeed, for a few moments responding was all he could do.

But Trip hadn't become the youngest Chief Engineer in Starfleet by flying blind and hoping for the best. He was a man who always read the manual … and often rewrote it. So when it became fairly obvious where this was going, he decided he'd better slow things down. "T'Pol … T'Pol, hold on a minute. What do I need to know here?"

She blinked uncomprehendingly at him.

He decided to start with the most basic question first. "Are we doing what I think we're doing?"

"If by that you mean engaging in sexual intercourse … yes." She took a breath. "Do you not wish to?" Her eyes dropped and her brow furrowed in confusion.

He smiled. "Well, obviously I _do._ It's just … I'm Human … you're Vulcan. Is there anything I should know before we…?" He'd actually already attempted to quietly research this matter himself years ago, out of sheer curiosity, but had come up against a wall of silence: the Vulcans, apparently, did not share any information of a potentially sexual nature with other species. That had left him with nothing but T'Pol's cryptic comments and some articles written by Humans and other aliens who made various highly dubious and contradictory claims.

"I believe Vulcan female and Human male physiology is sufficiently compatible. And as I believe we have already discussed, Vulcan women have no expectation of pleasure in the act. From my study of Human sexual practices, however, I am hopeful that _your _experience will be pleasant."

"_My _experience…?" He stopped and squinted at her. She'd studied the matter? Well, that was typical. "What are you saying, exactly? _Can_ you take pleasure in it?"

"I don't know."

How could she not _know?_ She was a _science_ officer. They didn't even share this knowledge among their own people? And really, how could any womannot know something that basic about her own body? Unless, perhaps, it really was something that simply didn't happen?

"So … is that why you're doing this? To find out?"

"That is not the only reason." Her eyes shifted away from him.

He grunted. He'd love to think she'd just suddenly gone all ga-ga for him, but he knew better. "You're jealous of Amanda."

Her face darkened in what sure as hell looked like anguish. "Would you rather do this with her? Perhaps, since she is Human…."

"No, T'Pol. Not at all. Not if I can be with you. You must know that."

She looked so damned relieved. He felt his remaining tenuous grasp on reason slipping away. Jealousy implied she meant more to him than just a chance to test a hypothesis, didn't it? She must _want _him, or she wouldn't bother.

But there was just so much they could really screw up here. "What if this ruins our working relationship?"

She looked taken aback. "Why would it?"

"Because sometimes sex can just kind of … mess things up."

"Even if neither of us wants that to happen?"

She just didn't get it, did she? Well, she was a virgin. A complete and utter virgin, obviously. Maybe afterwards she'd figure it out.

Or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe this was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Of course, it might already be that, even if he got up and walked out the door right now like a responsible senior officer would. You couldn't just tell a suddenly naked woman that no, you don't think so, without expecting to suffer a few consequences. This was perhaps especially true if you actually wanted her with every fiber of your being.

On the other hand, this was the _same_ T'Pol who had never let him hear the end of it about Ah'Len or Kaitaama. She _expected_ him to just jump at the first sign of a little action. She _assumed _he was _easy. _He said, "Look. It's not that I don't want to do this with you, T'Pol. Believe me, I do. But are you sure neither of us get pregnant from this? Or develop some terrible case of something unspeakable?"

"I have done some research into the matter. I don't believe so."

Had that sounded just a little uncertain?

As if she knew exactly what he was thinking, she suddenly pulled away. Without looking at him, she said, "I apologize, Commander. Your concerns are reasonable. I believe I have overstepped…"

"Oh no you don't," he said, horrified, and grabbed her before she could retreat further. He kissed her with all he had until her resistance melted and she began to respond to him again.

Once he was certain she wasn't going anywhere, he turned his attention to her right ear, licking, while his left hand went exploring further south. "There's just one thing," he murmured in her ear.

She waited, panting.

"You have to call me Trip."

"Trip," she growled, and pushed him back onto the floor.

He lay there a moment, a little stunned. She straddled him and did very nice things to his own ear with her tongue, then kissed and suckled her way aggressively down his neck, before sitting back and tugging on his pants. He lifted his ass cooperatively, but he couldn't help contemplating a wrestling move or two that might show her she wasn't the one who was going to call all the shots here.

Though if she was, he supposed he could live with that… Oh God! Oh God _yes,_ he could live with that.

x x x

What the hell?

He'd managed to wrestle some control back, for awhile, at least, and had gotten busy exploring this strange new world. And while there were fewer differences between T'Pol and Human females than he had feared, it turned out that she was as well protected as a new bottle of pills.

"T'Pol?"

"Yes?"

He took a breath. It was damned hard to think straight with her intoxicating scent fogging his brain. "You do realize this is kind of a no-going-back thing?"

"Of course."

"So any Vulcan guy you might someday want to, you know, do this with, would know…"

She lifted herself up on her elbows and stared down at him.

Shit. He supposed it wasn't really very romantic, bringing up the possibility of future lovers that weren't him. But being so inexperienced, perhaps she didn't understand. "We don't have to do this all the way, you know. There are other ways to … be intimate." He gave her a quick demonstration of what he meant, for he was already quite convinced that Vulcan females were as capable of pleasure as the Human kind.

Her breath hissed and her back arched, but apparently she wasn't persuaded. "I wish to have the full experience of coitus," she managed to get out from between gritted teeth.

Well. Trip certainly did, too, but he'd learned the hard way not to take anything for granted. "You're sure? That's not going to mean we're officially married on twelve planets or something, is it?"

She went still.

Shit. It _did._ It did, didn't it? _Did_ he want to be married to her? He hadn't even thought about it before. "Look, it's not that I'm totally opposed to the idea," he said, surprising himself, "but I don't think I'm really ready to take a major step like that."

She lifted herself up on her elbows again. "You're not Vulcan," she said. "I know that this act does not carry the same importance for Humans that it does for … most Vulcans. _I _certainly would not consider us married."

What _would_ she consider them to be, then? He wanted to ask, but he suddenly had this overwhelming sense that if he did he'd have become the girl in the relationship, tremulously trying to get her partner to promise he'd still love her in the morning.

So she just wanted "coitus"? Fine. He'd give her the best damned coitus in the universe. If she wanted to walk away from him after that, it would be her own loss.

He went back to work with renewed determination. He was a talented engineer. He could make _any _kind of equipment sing.

x x x

Wow.

Just … wow.

T'Pol had been a quiet lover, never vocalizing anything beyond a change in her breathing and some very soft moans. Afterwards, she was breathless and limp and so, so beautiful.

He couldn't believe she'd let him see her in a state of abandon like that. For that matter, he didn't think he ever felt like this before himself – as if his whole being belonged to her and to the universe at once, as if something in _him_ that had never opened before was suddenly in full blossom.

"I can't believe how amazing that was," he said. It had felt completely different than any other sex he'd ever had: he'd never imagined experiencing such a profound sense of connection to another person, ever. "I think you may have just ruined me for anyone else."

She swallowed and said nothing, just stared up at him, her eyes wide.

Even with a continuing undercurrent of connection – yes, he was definitely feeling something, a kind of low-level hum in the back of his mind – her silence at this point was a little unnerving.

Well, what had he expected? That she would tell him she loved him too and he was her very special honey bunny? _That _was never going to happen. He propped himself up on his elbow next to her – there wasn't really enough space on the narrow bunk for them to lie side by side. "Sorry," he said, brushing a loose wet hair back from her forehead. "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

She visibly flinched, and he cursed himself for somehow saying the wrong thing. "Talk to me, T'Pol," he said softly, and laid a possessive hand on her incredibly chiseled belly. Every instinct told him not to allow her too much space now or she'd take it.

"I'm not uncomfortable," she said. "I'm … surprised." She stopped and took a breath and started over. "The experience was far more pleasant than I had anticipated."

He smiled and said, "Good," though it still seemed to him that something was bothering her.

Perhaps she would be thinking she wasn't supposed to have a good time?

She'd turned towards him, then, as if to tell him something, when the comm suddenly blared to life with a tactical alert.

After that there was the rush of finding clothing and getting dressed and running to their duty stations.

x x x

Since nothing seemed to be happening once he got to engineering, he went into the bathroom to change into the spare uniform he kept there.

Was that a_ hickey?_

He leaned into the mirror in disbelief. He hadn't had one of those since high school. He tugged on his black undershirt, relieved that the vivid mark was low enough he could keep it covered.

She _had _been pretty intent on his neck – he remembered that.

Suddenly he didn't feel quite so anxious about what she might have been about to say. If she tried to go all Distant Logical Vulcan on him, maybe he would just casually open his shirt and remind her of what she'd done. Maybe he could even say, "You broke it, you own it."

Of course, that could apply to him, too, in this case. But after what they'd just shared, he wasn't quite as freaked out at that idea as he had been before.

Outside, he checked engine status – everything was humming along – and checked in with staff – also humming along – and went back into the bathroom one more time, just to look at that hickey again.

He was not had not imagined it_. _T'Pol had given him a hickey.

He had _evidence._

x x x

Okay, he'd almost let her get away with all that Logical Vulcan Bullshit out of sheer outrage and disbelief. He'd been nervously preparing to tell her that he was thinking maybe she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and she'd thanked him for allowing her to "explore Human sexuality."

It had thrown his game off, no question about it. He hadn't even thought to mention the damned hickey. And he was _still _furious.

But he was also an idiot if he thought T'Pol was going to be able to handle that morning-after conversation like a Human woman would.

And besides, maybe she'd just done him a big favor. For one thing, she'd helped him come to his senses.

He'd been as moony as a teenager about T'Pol for months now, but that didn't mean there was any future in it. It was ridiculous that just because they'd shared one astoundingly amazing session in the sack that he'd suddenly leap ahead to all sorts of things that never would and probably never could happen, even if by some miracle they bothwanted them.

What was that brain chemical? Oxytocin? The one that makes people who are having sex feel like they complete each other? The one that encourages them to have children and be monogamous at least long enough to get the children safely to reproductive age, because that's what their genes want them to do? This wasn't _really_ him getting his heart broken: it was just his genes misfiring, trying to get him to start reproducing with this hot Vulcan babe who was just deliciously curvy enough to trick his stupid Human genes into thinking there was some point to it. Maybe there was even something about Vulcan physiology that made a Human male's brain _overdose_ on oxytocin or something.

So … to hell with her!

Except that he also knew somehow, deep in his bones, that she was full of shit. If she wasn't somehow desperate for him, or at least desperate for _somebody_, she would never have done what she did. Never. She had needed him. Badly.

So … he was very confused.

He should be pleased that she'd help him come to his senses before it was too late, because this was just so pointless. But he was equally certain she had real feelings for him, and simply had no idea how to deal with them.

Which left him pretty much exactly where he'd been before they'd had sex: still caring deeply about this woman and still fairly certain there was no use feeling that way, except that now he was feeling insulted on top of all of it.

It clearly wasn't going to work for anything more than the very short term. He should just be thankful for having that one night. One glorious, amazing night ….

Or maybe…

No, Tucker, you freaking idiot. One night. That was it. Never again. Don't be so damned _easy._

Still, he couldn't quite completely bury the idea that if he played this right, he'd have her again. Even that he'd have her all to himself in the end.

Which was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

He sighed.

The problem was, he just couldn't make himself stop thinking that she was already his.


	16. Doctor's Orders

**SPOILERS:** "Doctor's Orders" and "Harbinger" and it will make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Doctor's Orders" was written by Chris Black.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Okay, I'm into territory where there is at least one reference in canon that suggests I may be wrong, but this one reference contradicts other suggestions in canon, as well as various date stamps that also don't really make sense if you start trying to work them out. So … in the fine tradition of fanfic (and arguably the show itself), I'm just going to do what the hell I want to do. Thank you as always, reviewers and beta JustTripn, who definitely stood her ground with me on this one.

* * *

T'Pol was pleased when Commander Tucker showed up for neuro-pressure as usual, despite his obviously disgruntled reaction to her use of "exploration" to characterize their encounter two nights earlier.

Apparently that had not been the best possible choice of words.

However, she was not sure how she _should_ have characterized their encounter. He had taken some pains during the evening to clarify that what they were about to do would not constitute a serious commitment, or pose a risk to their day-to-day working relationship. (As a superior officer, she should have been pleased to note this serious consideration of the possible consequences of his actions, although she had not, in fact, welcomed his hesitation at the time.)

Unfortunately, it appeared that his concerns about their working relationship had been valid. Indeed, she was just beginning to realize _how_ valid. She had barely been able to concentrate on her job for the last 36 hours. Instead she had frequently caught herself brooding over her relationship with him and whether it had been irreparably damaged.

So it was a comfort, at least, that he had come. She was calmed by the feel of his skin under her fingertips and the smell of his body so close at hand. But his muscles were extremely tense, stubbornly refusing to respond to her efforts, and he was also quite silent. "You aren't saying much tonight," she said, consciously quoting his own words back to him.

"What do you want me to say?"

Was he being intentionally obtuse? "I understood conversation to be a generally spontaneous exchange of information and opinions, rather than an exercise in fulfilling someone else's expectations."

He sighed heavily. "I just don't know what to say anymore."

Overwhelmed by a sudden sense of futility, she let her hands drop from his back.

He turned around to face her. "T'Pol, I don't know what the hell is going on here."

"I don't, either. And I have no relevant experience to draw on. _You,_ however…"

"_What?_" he snapped.

"You have been in a number of sexual relationships. Perhaps if you could tell me what is generally expected…"

He stared at her. "Are you saying this _is_ a relationship, then? I thought that was just an 'exploration'."

If _he_ didn't know, how was _she _supposed to? "Commander—"

"_Trip!_"

"Trip. You expressed some concern that having sexual relations would interfere in our working relationship."

He nodded impatiently. "And…?"

"And I understood that to mean that we should not let that happen."

His face screwed up in confusion. "So … what are you saying? That yesterday at breakfast … you were … trying to keep that from happening by … what? By being unbelievably cold and detached about the whole thing?"

She got up and walked to the window. "Vulcans are by nature somewhat cold and detached," she said, over the most peculiar sensation of a lump in her throat. Vulcans did not cry either, despite the fear and grief her Trellium-affected brain was currently flooding her with. She took a deep breath and stared out at into space, trying to regain her control. The cultural chasm between them had never seemed wider or more impassable.

In the window, his bare-chested reflection loomed behind her. She flushed in anticipation, but he stopped short and said, "Look. I don't understand. I just don't. What do you want from me?"

Was there any point in telling him? He'd said they should just forget it ever happened. Presumably this meant that for him that was possible, perhaps even desirable.

Just as it ought to be for her. She turned around, and said, "I don't want to lose our working relationship … or your friendship."

His expression softened. "I don't either. Especially not when I've finally gotten you to call me Trip."

"Perhaps the more useful question is what you want from _me_." She suddenly noticed the vivid purple bruise where his neck met his collar bone, and put out her hand to touch it gently.

He watched her. "You gave me a hickey."

"Is it painful?"

"Nah," he said, still watching her intently.

They were so close. She could feel attraction humming between them like a strong magnetic force.

Was she the only one perceiving this? Why didn't he kiss her? If he were Vulcan, he'd know she was _his._

But Trip was not Vulcan. And this was probably exactly the reason she had felt it would be safe to have sexual relations with him. She was _not_ his. She swallowed. "You didn't answer my question. What do you want from me?"

"I… " He stopped and sighed. "Okay, so obviously there's this _thing_ between us_,_ now. I don't know, maybe there always was. But it looks like it's going to take some serious time and effort to thrash it all out and... well, you're Vulcan, I'm Human, so is there any future in it?" He paused for a moment, as if waiting for the answer that didn't come, then continued, "Or are you going to continue to suggest this is just, I don't know, some sort of weird sexual anthropology hobby you've suddenly taken up?" He paced across the room and back. "Not to mention, thinking about all this is really, really_…_" He threw his hands in the air. "…distracting! I can't think straight. I can barely focus on my job."

She watched him and tried to determine which of the questions he had just asked he actually wanted answers to. She certainly did not intend to take up sexual anthropology as a hobby, but she doubted that he seriously thought she might. (_Was_ there even such a field of study?) As to whether there was any future in their relationship … clearly not, if one logically considered it. They could never have children, for one, and she knew he would want that. But given the dire nature of their mission, thinking about the "future" also struck her as irrationally optimistic.

"T'Pol?" he prompted her.

Perhaps it would be safest to strike a note of commonality. "I apologize. I am experiencing significant difficulties with concentration as well."

That elicited a smile from him. "That's nice to know, actually."

She swallowed. She could not tell him about the Trellium-D, but she could perhaps hint that she was not functioning in a normal way. "I believe the Expanse may be taking a toll on my emotional control."

He blinked, suddenly all concern. "Have you seen Phlox about it?"

"Not yet."

"Maybe you should."

She didn't respond. She was hardly ready to explain why that would be problematic.

"Look," he said, with a heavy sigh. "This is a very important mission. THE most important mission. And this … whatever the hell it is … is obviously distracting both of us. I don't know. Maybe we should just stick with what we already know we can handle. For now."

"And Corporal Cole?"

His voice deepened with obvious displeasure. "What about her?"

"Perhaps you will feel you can more easily handle a sexual relationship with her."

He had the most peculiar expression on his face now. "Yeah, maybe once this hickey you planted on me disappears. And if _we're_ not together, then that wouldn't really be any of your business, would it?"

Her initial reaction to his words – something approaching panic – was greatly tempered when she noticed the glint of amusement in his eyes. He was _intentionally_ provoking her. "I suppose not," she said coolly.

He smirked. "So are we going to finish this neuro-pressure session tonight, or not?"

"Perhaps if you would resume the proper posture..."

He lifted his eyebrows, then turned and went back to the bench.

She found the correct position on his vertebrae and pressed. This time his muscles released under her pressure.

In truth, she wasn't sure what had just happened, or where they now stood in relation to each other.

But he was still here.

x x x

As Phlox awakened each member of the crew in turn, the mess hall quickly filled with hungry, dehydrated humans. The doctor had left gallons of electrolyte drink out on a table along with some disposable cups and a bin of graham crackers, but he had not attempted to prepare anything more substantial.

As someone from a species that had evolved on a desert planet, T'Pol was much less affected by lack of hydration. Chef, however, would no doubt be suffering from his four days without food and water. So she went into the galley. "How can I help?" she asked.

"This isn't your post, ma'am," Chef said grimly, even as he pulled food out of stasis.

The steward assisting Chef chose that moment to sink to the floor in a near-faint. T'Pol detailed one of the sturdier-looking crewmen in the mess hall to provide electrolyte fluids to him in the captain's mess until Phlox could return.

"Okay, fine, you're hired," Chef said, and told her what to do.

T'Pol spent the next hour filling the ship's beverage dispenser with various ingredients, ferrying platters to and from the long tables at which large buffets were served, sanitizing dishes, and trying to ignore the repulsive smell of cooking meat.

Captain Archer checked in with her quickly while grabbing a cup of coffee and a breakfast to go. "How's everyone doing?" he asked.

"The crew appears to be extremely hungry and thirsty," she said.

Archer grinned. "Guess you're in the right place, then. I'll be on the bridge."

Commander Tucker would be in engineering, no doubt. She had felt the thrum of the impulse drive engaging and disengaging a couple of times already. She hoped he had had the foresight to drink something before beginning duty.

Finally, as she stepped out of the galley with a large platter of blueberry pancakes for the table, he was there, looking rather pale, and surveying the various foodstuffs. He looked up and smiled as she put the fresh platter out. "When did you join the galley staff?"

"There was a sudden vacancy."

"Have you eaten yet?"

"No."

"Come join me."

"If Chef gives me permission," she said, somewhat ironically, and surveyed the table for emptying platters. Of course: the bacon _and_ the sausage. She was carefully using utensils to combine the remains of both so that she could take back an empty platter when she noticed Amanda Cole sidle up next to Trip, who was still loading his plate.

"Hungry?" the MACO asked.

"Yep," he said.

"I guess from now on I should only get Vulcan neuro-pressure from actual Vulcans."

"Sorry. You should have told me you were having headaches."

"I didn't realize they were connected. Anyway, I'm sure we could think of something else to do together."

T'Pol sucked in her breath. Corporal Cole's meaning was startlingly clear. She felt her heart begin to pound, and a strange buzzing filled her head.

Although he was some distance down the table, Trip suddenly looked up and over at her, his eyes wide.

Then he turned back to Cole and said, "You know, Amanda, I don't think that's going to work out anytime soon. Phlox may have saved all our butts with the warp drive, but I'm going to be realigning the coils for days. I won't have much time for anything else."

"Oh," Cole said, her tone clipped. "I see."

"Yeah," Trip said. "What can I say? I'm sorry." He shot another glance down the table at T'Pol, who merely raised an eyebrow and left with her platter, her equanimity suddenly restored.

She told Chef she was going to eat, and ladled herself a bowl of plomeek broth.

Tucker was now sitting at an empty table – Cole, she noticed, had left the room – and she joined him.

He finished chewing a mouthful of food and said, "So is Corporal Cole safe from your vengeance now?"

"Excuse me?"

"For a moment there I thought you might be about to kill her."

She lifted a disapproving eyebrow. This was hardly a conversation for the mess hall.

He gave her a long sardonic stare, which she met with a blank one of her own. "Okay," he said finally. "So let me tell you what our doctor did to my engines."


	17. Hatchery

**SPOILERS:** "Hatchery" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Hatchery" was written by André Bormanis and Michael Sussman.

**Author's Note: **I've got to set up poor T'Pol for the meltdown that begins in "Azati Prime," so many of you will find this entry less pleasant than the last one. It has its moments, though. Thanks as always to beta JustTripn and to you kind and generous souls who leave feedback and keep my muse happy and well-fed. You are definitely among the many people I am grateful for as we celebrate Thanksgiving here.

**Way-Too-Geeky Additional Author's Note for Continuity Mavens Only:** I really enjoy the episode "Hatchery," but it has a serious continuity screw-up. After Tucker retrieves the captain from the planet, we get the usual shot of the ship at warp and a voice over of T'Pol saying they've resumed their course to Azati Prime. THEN we get a sickbay scene where they discuss what went wrong with the captain and she reinstates the MACOs, and Reed and Hayes discuss what just went down. Then we get a scene between Trip and Archer in which Trip reports they _just _got back the last of their antimatter reserves, Trip refuses to let Archer get up and return to duty without the rest the doctor ordered, and Archer orders him to tell Travis to head to Azati Prime, maximum warp. Come again? Archer need only look out his window to realize they are already at warp, if T'Pol's V/O was to be believed. I can only assume that during editing these scenes were switched around from their original order. And that is a very longwinded explanation why** what I wrote here deviates a bit from the order you see on screen. **

* * *

Trip stared back at T'Pol. She was accusing him of letting personal feelings for _Jon_ affect his decision to attempt what amounted to a mutiny? "I think I should probably be a little more worried about letting my personal feelings about _you_ affect me. I've never _slept _with the captain."

Her brow furrowed. "You haven't… Ah. You mean you haven't _had sexual relations_ with the captain."

"Right," Trip said, a little bemused, if only because he knew there were at least a few people back at Starfleet who'd theorized that was how he made commander so young.

She frowned. "It's hardly logical to allow fear of influence from a single sexual encounter to prevent you from taking the appropriate measures to protect our mission."

Could she get any closer to him without actually climbing into his uniform? Worse, she was pinning him with her most earnest gaze. He was a total sucker for her earnest gaze. "Yeah, I know," he said, and sighed, capitulating. Maybe he'd never really had a chance, but he also knew she was right. They couldn't afford his usual pigheaded sense of loyalty right now. "I'll talk to Phlox. We'll get the captain to go for a physical."

"Thank you," she said, with a tone of finality.

_Dismissed,_ he thought, a little irritated. "T'Pol, if I leave right now, Chang's got to notice this was the shortest neuro-pressure session in history."

"Corporal Chang is not likely to be well-versed in Vulcan neuro-pressure."

"Are you kidding me? The whole damned crew thinks it's well-versed in Vulcan neuro-pressure."

She looked confused. "You believe we should use this time for a neuro-pressure session?"

"No. But I also don't think I should just run back out too quickly. It might raise suspicion."

"The captain has interrupted our sessions before. You could simply note that he has requested your presence."

Trip scowled. "I thought Vulcans never lied. We can't afford to get caught over something stupid. Let's just … I don't know. Put the time to use."

Her eyes darkened perceptibly. Oh God. Did she think that had been _a come-on?_

Maybe she did. Although she'd gone along with his suggestion that they put off any physical relationship for now, her fingers on his back during neuro-pressure sang to him in a language all their own, a kind of wordless thrumming longing. And _his _body tended to respond despite his best efforts at distracting himself.

She had even mentioned it during their last session. She said, "You appear to be somewhat aroused."

"Sorry. Sometimes I can't really help it. My body has learned to associate you with a good time."

"I would not be averse to further exploration if you were so inclined."

"Mmmm… better not," he'd said, voice all gravely because his mouth had suddenly gone dry. "_Exploration_ isn't really a good enough reason to risk ship's discipline right now, is it? Don't worry, if you ignore it, it will go away."

"As you wish," she'd said, her tone distinctly frosty.

There was a method to his madness, though it was frustrating as hell to stick to it. It helped that he was absolutely certain she wanted him, though he sometimes wondered just where that confidence was coming from and whether he might be deluding himself. But his gut told him she just didn't want to admit any feelings to him. Hell, she probably didn't even want to admit them to herself.

And he wasn't going to let her get away with that.

Of course, the risk was she'd never ever admit to a damned thing, and that would be all she wrote.

But at least he'd still have his dignity. Charles Tucker III was not going to be anybody's boy toy. Not this time around.

So even as she stared hungrily at him now, he took out his communicator. "Tucker to Phlox."

"Phlox here."

"Can I ask you something in confidence, doc?" He looked at T'Pol, who frowned and walked away to the window. Oh yeah. He was frustrating the hell out of her.

There was a pause. "Of course, Commander. Sickbay is currently unoccupied, if you'd like to come see me."

"Don't really have time for that right now, Doc. It's about the captain."

"Ah."

"T'Pol and I are concerned that his behavior has become irrational. We want you to order him in for a full medical exam."

"I see," Phlox said. It was clear he was uncomfortable. "Commander Tucker, getting the Captain to sickbay for an exam can be a challenge at the best of times."

T'Pol spoke up. "Doctor, Starfleet order 104 section C requires you to relieve the captain of command if he is exhibiting signs of mental instability. You can employ that as a lever to get him to cooperate with you, or to relieve him if he does not."

There was silence for a moment, before Phlox said, "I suspect the captain may not be nearly as impressed by that regulation as you are, T'Pol. But I can certainly try."

"That's all we can ask," Trip said. "If you need my help, just let me know." He put away his communicator and shook his head. He was committed now, wasn't he? He looked back at T'Pol, who was standing there with her arms folded, watching him.

_Was_ he letting his hormones lead him astray?

"You're doing the right thing," she said.

The ship rocked suddenly. He said, "That felt like—"

"—weapons fire," T'Pol finished.

But by then he was running out the door without even a thought for what Corporal Chang might think.

x x x

The tactical alert ended almost as soon as it had started, so Trip left engineering for the bridge in the hope of finding out what the hell was going on. Reed hadn't responded to his attempts on the comm. When he arrived, there was a noticeable absence of personnel. "Where's Malcolm?" he asked Hoshi, who looked a little dazed.

"Hoshi?"

Her eyes went to the ready room door. "The captain relieved Lieutenant Reed and confined him to quarters."

"What? Why?" Trip said.

She traded a hooded glance with Mayweather, then peered back towards the situation room, where there were two other crewman working.

Trip moved closer, and she lowered her voice. "The insectoid ship that fired on us was about to open a vortex. The lieutenant ordered it destroyed. But the captain was upset… he said those insectoids might have been able to take care of the hatchery." She dropped her voice even further. "Commander, he's asked me to send out a distress call in Insectoid on all frequencies."

"Did you?" Trip asked, horrified.

"No, not yet, but… he's just in there with Major Hayes. When he comes out he's probably going to ask me why it's taking so long."

"Stall him, Hoshi. You have to stall him. Have an equipment breakdown, whatever it takes."

"Sir?" she said, her eyes wide. She exchanged another worried look with Travis.

"Look, call me or signal me or whatever if you get any more insane orders," Trip said, just loud enough for Travis to hear too. "Stall them as best you can. Something's obviously wrong with the captain. We're working on a solution right now."

They stared back at him, clearly rattled, but neither protested. Trip headed to sickbay. He'd get Phlox and bring him up here himself if he had to.

Any doubts he'd had about stopping the captain were gone.

x x x

T'Pol hoped Major Hayes and Lieutenant Reed's relationship would not revert to its previous adversarial nature as a result of recent events. Thankfully, neither had appeared particularly hostile as Phlox explained what had affected the captain. Still, it might be best to give them a chance to discuss the matter between themselves. She glanced at Trip, and was gratified when he followed her out of sickbay.

"How was the captain when he awoke from the stun?" she asked.

Tucker sighed. "Livid. He wanted me in the brig. Phlox had to sedate him."

"He must have recovered significantly if Phlox allowed him to go to his quarters."

"I sure hope so," Tucker said grimly.

"The antimatter?"

"We're trying to get out the stuff the cap'n already got into their reactor, so it's taking a little longer. We won't be able to get all of it back; that would take too long. But we'll get most of it. It should be stowed up here again in less than an hour." He sighed again. Clearly, he was somewhat fatigued.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

Tucker squinted, apparently trying to remember. "Not recently."

"Join me," she said – ordered, really – and led the way to the mess hall. It was quiet, but not empty. After they obtained trays of food, she led the way to the captain's mess.

Tucker sat down quietly and ate his sandwich without any attempt at conversation.

She ate her salad and reflected that the subdued silence of this meal, so entirely in keeping with Vulcan custom, was actually somewhat disturbing to her now. "Is something bothering you?" she asked.

Tucker chewed his food for a moment longer, then said, "When Phlox and I first approached the cap'n about the physical, he suggested you were manipulating me."

"He was in a delusional state."

"Deluded or not, if he thinks you _can_ manipulate me, he must think there's something going on."

"Surely anyone can attempt to 'manipulate' another's behavior."

Tucker shook his head. "_Manipulatio_n usually implies that there's an emotional component involved. Yeah, okay, so sometimes it might just be an attempt to make the other person irrationally angry … and, yeah, that could be from a stranger, even … but from you? I really don't think that's what he was implying. " He stretched a hand out towards her on the table. "The cap'n thinks there's something going on. It's not the first time he's mentioned it, either, but I could deny it straight-faced the last time. This time…" He shook his head again and said, sourly, "Even if there's not _much_ going on, there's obviously been _something…_"

She could practically feel him steeling himself for something unpleasant and could guess that she wasn't going to like it. "Your point, Commander?"

He gave a heavy sigh. "I think we should take a break on the neuro-pressure. I'm sleeping okay. And it would give the rumor-mongers a much-needed rest. We'll be at Azati Prime soon. We can't afford any distractions. I don't want the cap'n wondering if I'm fully focused on my job or mooning over you. _I _don't want to be wondering, either."

"I see," she said, and hoped he would not notice how profoundly she was reeling inside. Granted, he had just implied he was preoccupied with her, which might have given her some satisfaction if he wasn't also closing the door on neuro-pressure in the same breath. He had no idea how important their sessions were to her.

But then, Humans were also notorious for moving on from one partner to the next. After all, she'd watched him 'dump' Corporal Cole over a breakfast buffet.

As if he could tell exactly what she was thinking, he said, "And _no_, I'm not going to try to mess with Amanda, or anyone else. If we didn't have this mission to worry about, I wouldn't be suggesting this at all. I'd…" He took a shaky breath. "…I'd probably be pestering the hell out of you. And if we come through this mission okay, well…" He pinned her with a long, intense look. "All bets are off."

She nodded, acknowledging his point. No doubt he meant to reassure her, but in her private opinion the chances of their mutual survival were quite small. "It is of course logical to focus on the success of our mission," she said, her tone flat.

He raised his glass of milk. "So… to the success of our mission."

"To success," she said, and raised her water glass in an echo of his gesture, but did not drink from it.

Commander Tucker was being more logical about this than _she_ was, and that was a bitter truth to swallow.


	18. Azati Prime

**SPOILERS:** "Azati Prime" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Azati Prime" was written by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Manny Coto, and I pick up a good chunk of their original dialogue this time.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **As a literal-minded Vulcan translating the English colloquialism might say, now the excrement is beginning to travel through a ventilation device. This missing scene uses some existing show dialogue because, well, it needed it in order to get to the ending I wanted. I know a lot of T'Pol fans hate "Azati Prime." While her very OOC behavior is disturbing, especially to an audience that doesn't know about the Trellium-D yet, and although Archer's self-sacrifice makes no tactical sense in any universe I can imagine, I still find this episode riveting. What I've added here would never work on television (and is only middlin' as fanfic), but I wanted some insight into T'Pol's thought processes. Many thanks as always, reviewers and beta JustTripn.

* * *

No, she didn't need Trip's leadership advice. She already knew she was failing spectacularly.

Unfortunately, she was also certain that watching her fall apart on the bridge would do more harm to the crew's wavering morale than what she was doing right now, which was…what?

Trying to come up with a plan, any plan, that wasn't guaranteed to result in all their deaths and the destruction of Earth?

Or just desperately attempting to hold off what the humans called a nervous breakdown?

Why was it so difficult to focus and do what the situation required? She tried to lay out the facts logically: Archer wasn't coming back. Trip was probably right about that.

How could she not have foreseen the possibility that she would have to take over for the captain at a point like this? She had been reeling with dismay ever since his announcement of his plan, but she had been utterly unable to counter it with a better one.

It was particularly hard not to flash back to that long nightmare of an alternative timeline she had 'dreamed' a couple of months back. She'd failed them then, too. Perhaps that explained the oppressive sense of doom that she felt now.

Or perhaps it was because there were simply no good options left.

She noticed that she was wringing her hands and forced herself to stop. Perhaps this was what inevitably happened when a Vulcan suffering from Pa'nar Syndrome and an unfortunate preoccupation with one Human engineer stupidly imagined she could safely experiment with emotions by ingesting and then injecting Trellium-D over a period of three months.

Even now, as she struggled to come up with their next move, her body was surging with unpredictable barrages of emotions… and demanding its next dose of Trellium-D, or her hands on Trip's skin, or both.

And whatever executive function she had left was overwhelmed with disgust that she had picked NOW of all times to realize this.

She blinked. A plan. They needed a plan.

Archer had taken the only ship that could get them inside the Xindi's well-fortified defenses. _Enterprise _stood no chance. A shuttle stood no chance. Either ship would have to be invisible to succeed. They could not be invisible.

A distraction?

Distractions were ineffective against automatic detection grids.

Perhaps, as a Vulcan, she could make a diplomatic overture where the Humans could not?

But Rajin had scanned her, too. Presumably, they knew she served with the Humans. It was also difficult to make successful diplomatic overtures on behalf of a species if merely mentioning who they were or why the overtures were needed would immediately doom your efforts and spark a massive search for the ship full of Humans who were depending on you to save them.

Where could _Enterprise_ hide? If the captain had been captured, leaving the protection of this planetoid was certain to bring the Xindi down upon them. However, their destruction of the lunar outpost would inevitably bring an investigation sooner or later. They could not stay here much longer.

And even if they _could_ beat a successful strategic retreat, what about the weapon? What about Earth?

She got up and paced the ready room floor, trying to walk off the terrible urge to go and simply huddle in the darkest corner of the ready room. Trip was right. The crew needed her to go out there and act as if she had a clue what to do.

Except that she couldn't. Because she didn't know what to do.

Why hadn't Archer _told_ them what to do if his plan didn't work? Was it because he also realized there was absolutely nothing else that stood the least chance of success? Or had he suffered from the delusion that she was capable of handling the job?

Just a week ago, she would have assumed she was. But events since then had conspired to reveal the truth.

First, Trip's unilateral decision to end the neuro-pressure sessions had made her realize just how much she depended on them. Indeed, as a run of increasingly sleepless nights passed without any physical contact to soothe her, she had contemplated telling him that _she_ was the one who needed those sessions now. She knew he would help her if it came to that. But they had also been running intense combat drills the whole time, readying themselves for whatever waited at Azati Prime. So even if she had wanted to admit her weakness to him, finding time to fit in a session would have been difficult.

Second, faced with the startling reality of her dependence on him, she had made a grim resolution about another unfortunate habit: she must stop the Trellium-D. Her increasingly rampant emotions were not likely to be helpful in a crisis. And if a part of her also wanted to reject all those feelings now simply because he had rejected _her_, even if only temporarily, that was just further evidence that she had indulged in this dangerous flirtation with _feeling_ for far too long.

Unfortunately, that second resolution had proven incredibly distracting. She had reduced her next dose, which had also been the last she had prepared for administration, thinking that it would be wiser to wean herself off rather than to stop all at once. She had told herself she would use the remaining partial dose only if it became truly necessary. She could then leave the rest of the Trellium-D ore undisturbed in Cargo Bay Two, and reclaim her heritage.

However, less than six hours later, she'd injected all the rest of it, and found it appallingly insufficient.

That was when she'd first realized that stopping was going to be much more of a challenge than she had realized. She would have to step the doses down more gradually … perhaps even wait for a less stressful time to make the attempt.

However, events since then had then conspired to keep her from Cargo Bay Two and the ore she needed to maintain herself. She had tried to get in there four separate times, and each time she had been interrupted. And right now all eyes in the crew were following her, waiting for her to tell them what to do.

She had comforted herself that this lack of access would help her keep her resolution even in the face of her own weakness. But now her craving for more Trellium-D had become a loud and constant drumbeat_,_ shredding her ability to attend to anything beyond the most routine tasks.

There was no escaping the obvious conclusion: she had become, at the very least, deeply psychologically dependent on Trellium-D.

She, T'Pol of Vulcan, daughter of T'Les, was an addict.

They would be better off without her right now. Trip was in better control of himself than she was. And if he wasn't waiting for her lead – or pushing and prodding her to take it – he'd step up and figure out the next steps without her.

Perhaps she could find Archer. Perhaps he could even "pull a miracle out of his ass," as Trip would put it. She could use diplomacy as an excuse. She might even attempt it, if the opportunity arose.

Realistically, however, the best thing she could do for _Enterprise_ right now was simply to get out of the way.

x x x

She had given them another hour to wait for Archer – time in which she had given Trip the assignment of installing Sato's translation matrix in the shuttle, hoping to keep him busy instead of arguing with her. He'd reminded her that she'd have to take the shuttle that wasn't insulated with Trellium-D, and she'd been tempted to tell him it didn't matter – that it might even help – but she didn't want to leave them without their one insulated shuttle, anymore than she wanted to admit she'd been helping herself to their carefully packed cache of the ore for the last three months.

Perhaps now they would be able to use the remaining Trellium-D for the purpose for which it had been intended.

She spent the time huddled with Ensign Sato, reviewing material the ensign had been gathering from their Xindi database about their diplomatic protocols.

Ultimately, she and Sato decided to focus on the Aquatics, since Azati Prime was clearly a water planet, and because she knew the least about that species. Thankfully, the need to focus on new material was a welcome distraction from everything else that was claiming her attention.

When the hour had almost passed, the door buzzed and Commander Tucker stepped in. "The translation matrix is installed," he said grimly. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Sato immediately stood, ready to leave them to it, but T'Pol had no intention of letting Trip get started. "This is not a good time," she said, standing and signaling to Sato that she should follow as she hurriedly brushed past Tucker and out the door.

On the bridge she waited for him to follow them out. She had never had it in her to offer rousing speeches, and in any case she knew that what she had to offer today was unlikely to bolster anybody's spirits or resolve. "The ship is yours, Commander," she said to Tucker, as the rest of the bridge crew watched. "If I meet with any success, I will contact you."

Tucker raised his hands to his hips, clearly readying an argument. Before he could open his mouth, she added, "May you all live long and prosper," and headed straight into the turbo-lift.

He jumped into it before the doors could shut. "This plan of yours doesn't make any sense," he said. "You must realize that."

"Daniels urged the captain to make peace with the Xindi. That suggests it has the potential to work."

"Since when do you listen to Daniels?"

"Perhaps _he's_ the reason we haven't heard from the captain yet. For all we know, Daniels might have somehow intercepted the captain."

Trip scowled. "Then what's the point of heading off on a fool's errand yourself? The crew already lost one captain today. We can't deal with another one so soon. T'Pol. Please don't do this to us." Blue eyes beseeched her.

"I'm sorry," she said. The lift door opened and she headed down the corridor as fast as she could. She had to move quickly, before she did something unforgiveable, like crying again.

It didn't take Tucker long to start up again, as he chased her down the corridor. "I don't think you're doing this to make peace, I think you want to try and save the captain."

"You're wrong." If anything, she was hoping the captain would save _her._

"Why do I get the feeling you haven't thought this through?"

That was too close to the truth. "You have made your objection clear. Now return to the bridge!"

"I'm not just going to sit still and watch you fly off and die!"

"I gave you an order!"

"T'Pol." He grabbed her elbow even as she rushed down the gangway. In some distant, still-analytical part of her brain she wondered if having sex with Trip meant that he would never feel compelled to follow her orders again, or had he simply _always_ ignored her rank when he wanted to? She tried to wrench herself away from him, and finally succeeded.

"What the hell's _wrong_ with you?" he demanded, and she suddenly realized how obvious her lapse of control must have become.

That was when Reed's voice came and they learned that the Xindi were on their way. She was too late.

The look in Trip's eyes then – so full of pain and fear and grief and concern – stayed with her even as she rushed back to the bridge and he ran in the opposite direction, towards Engineering.

Too late.

It was all too late.

There was nothing to do now but see it through.


	19. Damage

**SPOILERS:** "Damage" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Damage" was written by Phyllis Strong.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Damage, damage, damage and more damage. I appreciate any reviews (including constructive criticism). I've decided to fly without a beta this time, but I owe a debt of gratitude to JustTripn for all her insights up to now.

* * *

Trip stopped by sickbay on his way up to the bridge. Eager as he was to see the captain with his own eyes, he also wanted to check in on the injured members of his own staff.

What struck him first as he neared sickbay was the crowd of occupied cots stretching out into the corridor. Next came the awful mingled odors of humans in distress. After the caustic smoke and fumes of engineering he hadn't thought he'd be able to smell anything, but he had to stop and take a few slow, shallow breaths through his mouth to avoid adding the contents of his own stomach to the mix.

Once he'd resolved that issue, it didn't take long to find one of his own staff. Ensign Masaro was lying on a cot set up just inside the open doors, cradling his all-too-obviously broken arm and wrist. The ensign had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when a support beam had given way in the corridor outside Engineering. Now he was staring so intently at the ceiling above him that Trip looked up to see if there was something wrong with it. It looked sound, as this most protected part of the ship should be.

"Has anyone taken care of you yet?" he asked.

"Phlox said I would have to wait," Masaro said, without taking his eyes off the ceiling.

"They gave you something?"

"Yes, I'm fine, sir. Just lying here enjoying the show."

Trip eyed him doubtfully, and checked the ceiling one more time. He often found Masaro's sense of humor a little subtle. Perhaps the painkiller was making it even more elusive.

"Have you seen Marcel?" he asked, after scanning the rest of the beds and cots he could see without actually pulling sheets and curtains out of the way.

"He didn't make it." Masaro's tone was oddly lacking in affect.

"What?" Trip stared down at him, stunned. He knew Marcel's burns were bad, but he'd assumed they were survivable.

Masaro used his chin to point across to one of the room's alcoves, where four bodies lay under blankets. "You'll probably find him on the floor over there, sir. With the others that didn't make it."

Masaro's eyes, finally meeting his, glittered with something that raised the hackles on the back of Trip's neck. But then, no one on board exactly looked normal at this point.

"I'm sorry," Trip said. As two of the four ensigns assigned to engineering, Marcel and Masaro had only occasionally shared routine shifts. If Masaro was competitive – and if he was, he hid it well – he might have resented the fact that Trip was far more likely to leave the more mature and capable Marcel in charge of a shift. But Trip assumed they were friends, if only because he sometimes saw them eating together in the mess hall.

Masaro didn't say anything in response, just turned his focus back to the ceiling.

Phlox poked his head out from behind one of the curtains. "Commander Tucker, are you by any chance here to fix my imaging chamber so I don't have to rely on a hand scanner to diagnose critical internal injuries?"

Phlox looked as tired and frustrated as Trip had ever seen him, and Trip immediately abandoned any plan he might have formed of asking just what the hell had happened with Marcel. "Sorry, doc. I should be able to detail a repair team up here soon. I was just checking on my people."

"The captain has my most recent casualty report," Phlox said tersely, and disappeared again.

Trip touched Masaro lightly on his good arm and moved on. First, he made a quick inspection of the imaging chamber. It was unfortunately obvious that the problem wasn't going to be an easy fix. He managed to find a couple more engineering crewmen by being nosy and in the process happened upon other crewmen who had suffered much worse injuries, including two amputations and some horrifying burns. And no matter where he moved in sickbay, he was aware of that blanket-covered row of the dead. He left newly queasy. He hadn't really allowed himself to think about their losses, or that they might include the wry, witty Philippe Marcel, who had already been short-listed for promotion to _Columbia_.

That wouldn't happen now. Perhaps it never would have happened anyway. They didn't even have a working warp coil. Perhaps Lizzie and the other seven million and Marcel and the other crewmen they'd lost today had merely gotten a head start on the fate that awaited the rest of this crew and the rest of humanity.

In the privacy of the turbo-lift, Trip took deep, steady breaths – the ones T'Pol had taught him for neuro-pressure – and tried to get his game face back on.

At least the captain had come back to them. Surely that counted as something of a miracle?

It was at least a _relief._ Trip didn't know what to make of T'Pol's recent behavior, but he'd begun to wonder if he was going to have to organize yet another mutiny, something he definitely didn't have the time or the stomach for.

He also feared he'd simply lost all judgment where T'Pol was concerned. If _Archer_ had decided to fly off in a shuttle, would Trip have tried so desperately to stop him? Would he have attempted to literally pull _Jon _back by the arm?

No. Obviously not.

He'd had that chance with the captain earlier, and he hadn't even put up an argument.

x x x

"Is it just my imagination, or is T'Pol a mess?"

Trip grimaced. After the obligatory I'm-glad-you're-alive/so-am-I in the dark wreckage of the captain's ready room, Jon had gotten right to the point.

"I don't know, Cap'n. Something's up with her. I don't know what."

"She's not pregnant, is she?"

Trip nearly choked. "Ugh… I don't think that's possible." Was it?

Archer scowled. "Is she fit for duty?"

"I don't know. Are _any_ of us fit for duty right now? Do we even have enough able-bodied crewmen left to _worry_ about whether someone's fit for duty? I sure as hell don't. Plus, I'd guess that even when she's falling apart T'Pol is still more capable than the rest of us."

Jon sighed. "All right. Get the team together. I'll be out in a minute."

Malcolm and T'Pol were the first to join him in the situation room. "You all right?" Trip asked Malcolm.

Malcolm folded his arms and said, "Fine. You?"

"Can't complain," Trip said. "Still have all my fingers and toes. T'Pol?"

She had folded her arms, too. "I'm fine," she said softly, without quite meeting his eyes.

"We should have access to Cargo Bay Two restored by tomorrow," Malcolm said.

"Okay," Trip said, and wondered why he was telling him that.

"You have a number of spare parts stored there," T'Pol said, as Hoshi and Travis joined them.

Trip eyed her. "And they'll all have to be carefully inspected after being decompressed this long. Mind you, if we had a spare _warp coil_ tucked away there, I'd be the first one in the door."

Malcolm looked confused now. "But I thought…"

But the captain arrived then, and they fell into the practiced routine of delivering and discussing their anything-but-routine reports.

Throughout, Trip was conscious of T'Pol standing at his side – not as close as she sometimes stood, but not pointedly on the other side of the table, either. She looked tired but relatively collected, but he had the feeling it was taking enormous effort for her to maintain that appearance. Or maybe he was just projecting his own sense of exhaustion and near-despair onto her. According to Jon, the Reptilians and Insectoids could return to finish the job at any moment. And in the shape they were in now, their prospects of finding and stopping the weapon looked pretty damned grim.

Archer said, "I know things look as bad as they've ever looked right now. But we're still here. And I made some inroads with the Xindi, or I wouldn't be here. They have no reason to hurry up and launch, given the information they now have. Let's get ourselves back in some kind of shape and then see what we can do. I promise you: This isn't over yet."

Trip exchanged a quick, hooded glance with T'Pol. It was indeed a relief to have the captain back. Archer was a hell of a lot better at cheering on the troops than she was, or was at least willing to give it the old college try.

Trip just wished he could feel the least bit cheered up.


	20. The Forgotten

**SPOILERS:** "The Forgotten" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "The Forgotten" was written by Chris Black and David A. Goodman.

**CONTENT WARNING:** Non-explicit sexual activity. (And no, there will not be an NC-17 version for this one.)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **An r-rated coda to what I think might be my favorite scene in all of _Enterprise._ As always, I appreciate any reviews. (Also any edits, if you notice errors, though I intentionally used some run-on sentences in here for reasons that I hope will be obvious.) **Additional Note:** I edited this story slightly December 18, 2010 because I discovered a continuity error I had made in regards to their knowledge about the spheres.

* * *

"You're the ones to be envied," she told Trip, and she meant it, because even as he'd broken down in tears, she could sense the weight of his sister's death lifting from him. Not for the first time, it struck her that the Humans' greatest weaknesses could also be their greatest strengths. They gave into grief and let it go at the same time. They shared their sorrows, and then moved on. Already there was lightness in him that she hadn't felt in months, as if that tight, dark little compartment where he'd stuffed his grief over his sister's death had just been opened to the air.

Vulcans never opened their compartments. They spent their entire adult lives carefully and methodically _maintaining_ their compartments.

Staring into his tear-stained eyes, she tried to tell herself that if it hadn't unburdened himself to _her_, it would have been someone else, even though she would have preferred to believe he wouldn't have said any of this to the captain or to Malcolm Reed or to Amanda Cole.

But she knew that was not true. He was a Human. He was a Human who could take solace in many different people, and who would probably turn efficiently back to duty and mission now, as was his habit. She tugged gently on the hand he had grasped, the one she had raised to his shoulder, pulling it back before she would have to suffer the rejection of his letting it go.

But he didn't let it go. He held on, and his eyes darkened.

And she felt a rush of pure excitement. _At last._

Their mouths met, and then their tongues were in each other's mouths, and their hands were on each other's faces, and their bodies were entwining in increasing desperation. He lifted her right off the ground and she wrapped her legs around him. Yes, yes, yes. _This _was what it meant to be alive.

She felt a cold bulkhead at her back but thought nothing of it – the only sensation she cared about at this point was the one of being in direct contact with _him._ Frustrated, she tugged on the zipper of his uniform.

He grunted and backed away from the wall, then put her down just long enough to shove open a cabin door with his back and pull her into the dark, wrecked crewmen's quarters. He tugged the door closed again, panting in exasperation – it refused to close completely – and then they were at it again, peeling each other out of their clothing, greeting each new centimeter of bare skin with lip and tongue and hand until he turned and brushed a shower of debris off the lower bunk – she didn't dare think whose bunk it was, she didn't care, it didn't matter, especially when he lay her down on it – and then they were both fumbling breathlessly and then

Oh

Oh

Oh the sheer relief of _that_ again. In a distant part of her mind she wondered who was making all that noise and eventually realized it was her, almost sobbing with gratitude even as she broke apart into a thousand perfect pieces and he was groaning with his own release and sinking down next to her on the bunk, one arm and one leg thrown possessively across her.

"Oh, darlin'," he breathed.

She turned her nose into his neck, nuzzling his delectable skin.

Something metallic outside suddenly went crashing and there was a muffled curse and she was staring into the wide eyes of a horrified, mostly naked chief engineer. He sat up, banging his head on the bunk overhead, and desperately pulled up his underwear and uniform – helpfully, he hadn't managed to get completely out of either – and felt around in the near-total darkness for his undershirt. Putting a finger to her lips to warn her to be silent, he called, "Who's there?"

"Ensign Masaro, sir. Lieutenant Hess asked me to bring you this report."

"Um… okay, Masaro. Give me a minute. I kind of … dozed off in here."

"Sir," Masaro said. He didn't exactly sound convinced.

"_I'll take care of it,"_ Trip whispered in her ear, and kissed her quickly before he shoved the door open and then quickly closed it again. "What have you got?" he asked brusquely, and then there was silence as, presumably, he looked at the ensign's report. T'Pol lay there in darkness broken only by the sliver of light coming in from the not-quite-closed door, and tried to quietly wriggle herself back into her cat suit. It helped that she hadn't actually gotten all the way out of hers, either.

How long had they been in here, all told? Twelve minutes? It was certainly quite different than the first time. Not less pleasant, just … different.

"All right. Let's go take a look," Trip said, a little louder than he needed to for just the ensign, and she could hear their footsteps departing.

She stood up. Wherewas her undershirt? She finally retrieved it from the floor, and got it back on, then zipped herself back into her cat suit, conscious of stickiness. There was not really any way to clean up.

At the door she paused, listening to ensure the corridor was clear before she wrestled the door open again and made her way into it.

They had very nearly been discovered in the actby a junior officer.

Or _had_ been discovered.

Indeed, how could Masaro _not_ have realized what was going on? Unless, perhaps, he'd just arrived? And his hearing was terrible? Human hearing _was_ quite poor, wasn't it? Even if he'd managed to peer in through the crack of the door, it was dark in here. He couldn't have seen anything, could he?

She hurried to her quarters, overcome with chagrin. Trip had been right, before. They should not be losing focus during a mission this important.

Probably he'd only succumbed to temptation now because he had been in a particularly vulnerable state. And in her post-Trellium-D state, she was also, obviously, still subject to extreme lapses of judgment.

Also, she'd touched him.

Why did she feel that strange hot current of unreasoning excitement when she made contact with him, while contact from others – like Archer earlier, in sickbay – never caused anything more than a mild frisson of warmth, or distaste?

But that didn't bear much thinking about, because it suggested the possibility of something she hadn't previously believed could exist between two Vulcans, let alone between a Vulcan and a Human.

And this whispered thing – for contemporary Vulcan science certainly frowned on the subject – if it did exist, was hardly something Trip would be pleased to learn about. Hadn't she already assured him that their relations would not constitute any significant commitment?

But this was ridiculous. More likely, her post-Trellium-D brain was confusing tactile sensation for something else, conflating the symptoms of one addiction with another.

At least she _was _successfully giving up the Trellium-D, though Phlox had warned her that the emotions might be with her for some time, possibly even forever.

Perhaps it would be best to give up these encounters with Commander Tucker as well, at least until she had gotten more of her emotional control back.

But how could she do that when everything about him continually beckoned to her?

But that was also ridiculous.

She was not an animal. She could master her primitive mating instincts, especially when they were so entirely inappropriate.

x x x

Her door buzzed later, as she had expected it would. She ignored it. The captain had asked her to review all their information about the spheres, looking for any potential weaknesses, so she had work to do. More importantly, she had temptation to resist.

x x x

One minute later she got the call. "Tucker to T'Pol."

She tabbed the comm. "T'Pol here."

"Why aren't you answering your door?"

"The captain asked me to review our information about the spheres."

"You could have answered the door and told me that."

"Are you not busy yourself?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"Perhaps another time, then," she said, and closed the connection.

x x x

Five minutes later, her computer monitor signaled the arrival of a message. She tried to ignore it, but found the knowledge that something was sitting there – perhaps from him – distracting, so she opened it.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

I know you're busy, but I scored a REAL vegetarian mushroom risotto ration-pack from the mess hall. Join me for a late dinner later?

x x x

Fr: SubCdr T'Pol

Commander, as I believe you have noted yourself, the mission should be our highest priority right now.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

We both still need to eat.

x x x

Fr: SubCdr T'Pol

Recent evidence suggests that I will be more likely to focus successfully on my work if you are not present. I believe you are the one who first suggested we should focus on our mission. After what happened between us earlier, I am forced to acknowledge the logic of that. I'm sure we can visit any issues that require further discussion once the mission is complete.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

You know, you don't make it very easy for a guy to express his appreciation.

x x x

Fr: SubCdr T'Pol

No such expression is required.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

It is for me. So, I appreciated it. A lot. I also wanted to apologize. I got a little carried away.

x x x

Fr: SubCdr T'Pol

Commander, you must have noticed that you were not alone in that. Given the significant lack of judgment we both showed, however, I think it would be best to avoid any possibility of future unprofessional behavior.

x x x

There was no response for some time after that, so she returned to her work. Seven minutes later, another message chimed.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

We're going to talk about this eventually. Especially if you want that risotto.

x x x

A risotto was something she could easily give up as long as she was giving up so much else. T'Pol began a response designed to put him off, then wondered why she was doing so. As was typical, he had enticed her into more discussion than was either necessary or desired. So she deleted the message she had begun and returned to her study of the data, though she couldn't help remaining alert for another message, or even another buzz at her door.

None came.

She recognized the peculiar feeling of restlessness that ensued as one of those uncomfortable emotional states Phlox had warned her might continue to afflict her for years, possibly even the rest of her life.

She decided that she would have to forgo her study temporarily in favor of more meditation.

Apparently, it was going to require a great deal of mental discipline to avoid waiting, either consciously or unconsciously, for Commander Tucker.


	21. E2

**SPOILERS:** "E2" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "E2" was written by Michael Sussman, and a portion of his original dialogue (which you will recognize as being from a missing scene, if you own the DVD) has been included here.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I included the missing scene dialogue because I think TnT shippers sometimes want to pretend it didn't exist, but I don't find it out of place for Trip at this point. I also find it hard to believe that he never figured out there was a T'Pol on the other ship, and that if he did he wouldn't want to do anything about it. However, I can also imagine why T'Pold (as Rigil Kent amusingly calls her) might have had concerns about a visit from him.

A very merry Christmas to all my Christmas-observing readers! (If you want to play Santa, leave me a review. Hell, I'll even take a lump of coal.)

* * *

Since T'Pol had made an excuse that made it clear she didn't want to do any of the explaining herself, Jon decided to walk Lorian down to Engineering. He wasn't quite sure what was up with his first officer, but at least it meant he would get to see Trip's reaction.

As they made their way down, he decided a little warning might be in order. "I'm guessing you already know that your father can be a bit plain spoken."

"Yes, I remember," Lorian said, with a tight, not-entirely-Vulcan smile.

This must be a very strange position for him to be in. Jon couldn't begin to imagine how he'd react to the opportunity to suddenly see his long-dead father again, let alone his father as a man much younger than he was … a man who hadn't even _thought_ of becoming his father yet.

Afflicted by nerves or not, Lorian certainly ducked through the door into engineering with practiced ease.

Jon said, "Trip, this is Lorian, captain of the other _Enterprise_."

Trip smiled. "I hear you guys got thrown back in time?" Despite his friendly face, his voice betrayed some skepticism, and he shot a quick questioning glance at Jon, so Jon gave him a small confirming nod. Trip stuck his tongue in the side of his mouth while he digested that, then said, "Well, I'm glad to see _Enterprise_ could last that long, especially after what she's been through recently. So you think you can get us up to 6.9?" This time even more skepticism was apparent.

Lorian said, "We believe it is a simple matter of modifying your injector assembly and adding some structural bracing to reinforce hull integrity."

Trip frowned. "I'm not sure how _simple _that can be, especially right now, but I'm willing to give it a listen."

Archer said, "Lorian is apparently a quite capable engineer, Trip. As you would expect."

Trip raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Because…?"

Jon took a deep breath. "Lorian is your son." He couldn't help a little smirk. "Yours and T'Pol's."

Trip's eyes narrowed. He turned to Lorian. "The cap'n really loves to pull my leg." But he also began a more thorough appraisal of their guest … an appraisal that quickly settled on Lorian's ears.

"It's no joke, Trip," Jon said. "Phlox confirmed it. I think he takes a bit after your father, don't you?"

Trip was staring hard at Lorian now. "But Humans and Vulcans…."

Lorian said, "Phlox found a way to successfully combine your DNA."

Trip stared silently at Lorian for a moment. Then he said, "You have any brothers and sisters over there?"

"No. Carrying a hybrid child posed something of a health risk for Mother and also required a large share of Enterprise's scarce medical resources. Once you succeeded in having one healthy child together, you decided that would be sufficient."

"Ah." Trip was beginning to look a little dazed now.

Jon clapped Trip on the shoulder and handed him the PADD his great granddaughter had handed him. "We need to make these modifications as soon as possible, Trip, assuming they look okay to you."

"Aye sir," Trip said, and shook his head as if to clear it. "Let me take a look."

x x x

The modifications the other crew had outlined looked reasonable, although Trip thought the simulations they'd run were less comprehensive than he would have preferred. Still, Archer had made his choice and there wasn't much time to dither around looking for potential problems. Besides, if anyone had your best interests at heart, it would presumably be your own descendents, whose existence depended on you being around long enough to have them in the first place.

But would that matter if they were already here in the same timeline with them now?

And if not, wouldn't they actually need to make _sure _they got sent back in time?

He scowled. Ever since Daniels had first appeared in their lives, Trip had begun to nurse a quiet hatred for temporal physics.

At least Lorian was, indeed, a talented engineer. That was a pleasant thing to notice about one's own son. So was the discovery that he had apparently considered Trip a good dad, if an alarmingly short-lived one.

Trip had to ask. "Maybe you could tell me more about your mother. How the two of us got together."

"She never told me. Mother rarely talked about you. I think it was too painful. She cared for you a great deal."

Trip couldn't help remembering T'Pol's recently repeated insistence that she wasn't interested in anything beyond _exploration. _He'd gone back to his quarters afterwards and decided that even if she _was_ full of shit, it was still _far _more shit than any man should ever have to wade through. It hadn't been an easy decision, which perhaps explained the bitterness he was still feeling as he said, "Doesn't seem like we're talking about the same T'Pol."

If anything, Lorian seemed slightly amused. "Your relationship was somewhat contentious. But you were always affectionate towards each other."

Could they really be talking about the same woman_?_ "I just can't see myself married to her. I suppose if we were marooned on a desert island…."

Which, of course, that crew essentially _was_…

Lorian's reaction suggested that he wasn't entirely comfortable with that remark – who would be, about his own mother? – so Trip decided he'd better refocus on the job at hand. "Sorry," he said. He was an idiot.

Still, as they continued to work together, he couldn't entirely rein in his curiosity. With prodding, Lorian told him some more of what he did know about their wedding from a recording that had been made of it. Trip said, "Your mother must have lived an awfully long time after I died. Did she ever marry again? Did she have a good life?"

Lorian stopped what he was doing and looked at Trip. "No, she never remarried. As a Vulcan she probably wouldn't describe herself as _happy_, but she seems fairly contented."

"Wait a minute," Trip said. "You just used the present tense. She's over there? Right now? How is that even possible?"

"Vulcans have much longer life spans than Humans. She is quite old, and getting rather fragile."

"I want to see her." Maybe _she'd_ give him the answers he wanted.

Lorian frowned. "She said that would be unwise."

"Why?" Trip demanded.

"She didn't go into detail about it, and I didn't ask. As you might have noticed, we've been quite busy."

Trip scowled. Clearly T'Pol hadn't really changed that much. She was _still _maddening.

x x x

Make that _extremely_ maddening.

_His _T'Pol, the one who had so suddenly gone all distant on him, had pissed him off so much with her coldness about their relationship as they worked together in the starboard annex that he'd literally had to walk away. It was either that or scream something unforgiveable at her about it being a cold day in hell before he'd ever waste another moment's thought on her tight Vulcan ass ever again.

And that would have been even ruder than what he _did_ say, as well as a lie. For despite being overwhelmingly busy with the sudden change in plans from modifying the injectors to reconfiguring the impulse manifolds, he'd barely been able to stop brooding about her all day.

Contentious, huh? Maybe they'd actually been at each other's throats the whole time. Kids have a vested interest in thinking their parents are happy, don't they? Maybe Lorian had been oblivious. Maybe _that _Trip had actually died young because T'Pol had made him so insane that he'd developed a death wish, and suddenly couldn't tell a live plasma conduit from a dead one.

Maybe he should just ignore her wishes and go over there and demand an explanation.

When he had time. If he ever did. He sighed. That was unlikely – unless, of course, they got thrown back in time all over again, at which point he'd no doubt find it all out for himself.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

So do you still check your messages as compulsively as you used to?

Your future (former?) husband

x x x

FR: T'Pol

I do. How are you, future/former husband? Have you finished installing the iso-magnetic collector?

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Running final tests right now. I'll tell you how I am: I'm confused. If we were actually MARRIED for all those years, would you please explain why you don't want to see the conveniently NON-DEAD version of me now?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

We were married for over 22 years. I doubt my younger self would appreciate me giving you a look at me right now. Do you recall a video character you referred to as the "Cryptkeeper"?

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Where's the logic in worrying about what I'll think of your old self if there's no way I'll ever live long enough to see my version of you actually get old? Just how old are you, anyway?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

If she hasn't told you yet, I'm certainly not going to. In all seriousness, Trip, you could lose your enthusiasm for the chase, and I fear you will need it.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Yeah, I'm getting that. So were we happy? Was it worth it?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Yes.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Just yes? On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy were we?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

9. I'd say 10, but you insisted I watch every Abbott and Costello movie ever made.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Ha. Will you finally admit you have a sense of humor NOW?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

No.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

That figures. So anyway, I like your son. Our son. This is weird. I could have done without the shooting me part.

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Lorian has been under tremendous pressure since we failed to stop the probe. Like all sentient beings, he has weaknesses.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Do you include yourself in that?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Of course. I always had a weakness for you.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Huh. I guess that's mutual. So…anything you want to give me any tips about?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Since you have met us, events should unfold quite differently for you even if you do get thrown back in time, which I sincerely hope you will not. Earth still depends on us to save it.

This is not a tip, but I hope that you will live long and prosper, with or without your T'Pol.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Hold on. With or without? Shouldn't you be cheering me on?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

I believe you have the capacity to be happy with many different people. If your T'Pol doesn't become trapped in the past, she might never accept her feelings for you. I would like you to be happy no matter what happens. Human life is all too short.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Are you sure I can't come over?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Much as I would like to see you, there are what you would call "weird-ass Vulcan" reasons at play, as well as my own vanity. Please trust me on this.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Is there ANYTHING I can do for you?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

If you have an unlaundered t-shirt to spare, I would like to smell my husband again.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Our laundry is still down over here. Unlaundered is REALLY unlaundered. You might pass out.

x x x

FR: T'Pol

I am willing to risk it. Is there anything you would like from me? Please don't ask for underwear. I even smell old, and it's not that easy to replace on this ship.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

Maybe I could wangle you some new stuff. Could you tell HER what you told me?

x x x

FR: T'Pol

I already attempted to lobby on your behalf. Of course, I could be quite stubborn at this point in my life.

x x x

FR: Cdr Tucker

No kidding. Ah, the collector looks good. Gotta go.

x x x

FR: T'Pol

Peace and long life, most beloved.

x x x

He stared at the screen, his mouth hanging open. Should he even attempt to respond to that? For once, he felt more Vulcan about their relationship than she did. He just wasn't prepared to call her his _most beloved_ yet. She'd understand that, wouldn't she?

Or was he breaking his future old widow's heart? He couldn't believe she actually wanted his _shirt._

"Trip?" Archer's voice on the comm. was distinctly impatient.

Trip shook himself. "Sorry, sir. Yes, we're good to go."

And then he had plenty of other things to worry about.

And then she was gone.


	22. The Council

**SPOILERS:** "The Council" and "E2" and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "The Council" was written by Manny Coto.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **"The Council" doesn't have many opportunities for our heroes to interact, but I squeezed in what I could, and also tried to explain what I saw as some rather odd behavior from T'Pol in that episode. Along the way I pay homage to one of my favorite movie lines of all time (yes, it's from _Airplane_. What, were you expecting something classy?)

Thank you, kind reviewers. I so enjoyed your yummy feedback on the last one! Think of this as a little Christmas Day bon-bon for you.

* * *

The next time Trip saw T'Pol was when they were waiting with the rest of the senior staff in the situation room for the captain to join them. Archer was just returning from his meeting with Degra and wanted to brief them on next steps.

"Still no sign of the other _Enterprise_?" he asked her.

"None," she said, without quite meeting his eyes.

As the captain briefed them, she stood across the table, arms crossed, avoiding his determined stare. Yep, she was definitely still in full retreat. Whatever lobbying the older version of T'Pol had attempted on his behalf clearly hadn't worked any magic.

Not that he really had time to worry about that. Ready or not, Jon wanted them to follow Degra right into the belly of the beast. "I could use more help in Engineering," Trip told him.

Archer nodded as if he'd expected as much. "Malcolm, can you spare anyone?"

"Respectfully, sir: No, not if you want us to regain anything close to our normal defensive capabilities."

"I do. There's no guarantee we won't encounter more opposition," Archer said. "According to Degra, the Reptilians might attack despite their escort."

"Can I have T'Pol?" Trip said. "She knows her way around Engineering."

Archer looked between the two of them – T'Pol's face had turned to stone – and gave him a slight scowl. "Ask Hayes if he can spare anyone. On our way to the Council we will be passing close by this sphere." He tapped its position on the situation table monitor. "T'Pol and Malcolm are going to take a shuttle and try to gather more information. They'll rejoin us when they're done."

"Hopefully we'll be able to discover a tactical weakness or two," Malcolm said.

Trip didn't see the point of that. "Don't we have a full set of scans from inside _and_ out?"

"This time we're going to attempt to access the sphere's memory core," T'Pol said. "We also need to determine whether there are any key differences between the interior of that first, malfunctioning sphere we scanned, and one that is fully functional."

Trip stared at her for a moment, before turning to the captain. "Didn't you just say the Reptilians might attack us? A shuttle wouldn't stand a chance against _any_ of their ships."

"That's a risk we'll have to take," Archer said firmly, and gave him his _Now Shut Up _look.

_But that's my future wife you're talking about, _Trip thought, before he noticed that said future wife, who clearly didn't consider him high on her list of potential suitors at the moment, was giving him a rather pointed _Shut Up_ stare all her own. Even Malcolm's mouth had settled into a disapproving line.

Fine. He'd shut up.

For now.

x x x

"You know, I still have that risotto."

Commander Tucker had somehow managed to jump into the turbo-lift with her. T'Pol kept her gaze resolutely forward and ignored him.

He moved closer to her and lowered his voice. "We need to talk, T'Pol."

She stood there, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body, only because she refused to give any ground. "After the mission," she said.

"There might not _be_ any 'after the mission'."

"In that case any discussion would be pointless."

"I know she talked to you about it."

She felt her jaw tighten. "You went over there despite her wishes?"

"No, but I did have a conversation with her. And it was pretty damned amazing."

T'Pol swallowed. Had her older self said anything to him about the Trellium-D? "Their situation was entirely different than ours," she said. It was true. That T'Pol had had no other options – certainly she'd had no opportunity to return to Vulcan.

"She asked for one of my _shirts_," Trip said. "She said she missed the way I _smell_."

She finally looked up, and his eyes bored into hers as if staring alone could somehow make her believe what he was saying. Apparently he didn't realize what his scent _already_ did to her. It was especially distracting in close quarters like these. Thankfully, the door opened.

"I have work to do," she said brusquely, and headed out.

"At least be _careful,_" he called out, and she looked back just in time to glimpse his anxious, half-wounded expression as the door drew shut.

It occurred to her that while the other versions of them had enjoyed years in which to work out their relationship, she might never see him again. Both _Enterprise _and the shuttle faced significant peril today. Perhaps she should have attempted a warmer farewell.

But there was nothing she could do about that now. She turned resolutely and headed for the launch bay. She had important preparations to make. Their priority must be the mission.

All other considerations must wait.

x x x

On board the shuttle craft, however, it was clear the other Humans also continued to be preoccupied with revelations from the other _Enterprise._

"So, does Corporal McKenzie have a boyfriend or anything?" Mayweather asked Hawkins.

Hawkins grinned. "She does, actually. He's stationed on Mars."

"Oh." Mayweather sounded disappointed.

"Hey, you never know," Hawkins said.

"Who'd you end up with on the other ship?" Mayweather asked.

"Nobody," Hawkins said. "Apparently there was an away mission very early on that I didn't return from."

"Oh, man. I hate it when that happens," Mayweather said, and all the Humans, inexplicably, chuckled.

"You must be relieved we didn't end up in the same situation they did," Reed said. "I know Iam." His tone turned distinctly mischievous. "How about you, T'Pol? Are you relieved we didn't get thrown back in time?"

"I believe that goes without saying," she said.

"At least _you_ had a husband," Reed said, with an amused glance at Mayweather.

"Indeed," she said coolly, hoping that she wouldn't have to warn them to keep their conversation within appropriate boundaries. "We should review those interior schematics again. Time may be of the essence once we gain entry to the sphere."

"Just how are we going to do that?" Mayweather asked.

T'Pol opened her mouth to tell him, and then closed it. "I believe it is simply a matter of directing the shuttle to the correct coordinates," she said, with deliberate obscurity.

Yes, perhaps _this _would teach them not to tease her about Commander Tucker.


	23. Countdown

**SPOILERS:** "Countdown" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it will probably make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Countdown" was written by André Bormanis and Chris Black, and a tiny portion of their original dialogue has been included here.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Took awhile to get this one done, because I started out in Trip's POV and started agonizing over starship engineering technobabble way more than any English major ever should. All I can say is: be thankful I eventually realized all that needed to go in the trash. And many, many thanks to you lovely reviewers. Happy New Year!

* * *

T'Pol looked down as the first fresh food she'd seen in weeks was delivered to her place.

"You're never going to want that risotto now," Trip said, but his tone was light. He appeared to be in high spirits, possibly out of sheer joy at once again having fresh animal flesh to ingest.

Or maybe it was because she'd called him Trip again.

In either case, it clearly it didn't take a great deal to please the man.

"I wouldn't dispose of it yet," she said, and looked over at the captain, whose look in return was appropriately sober.

Trip didn't seem to realize how remarkable it would be if all of them survived the next 24 hours. She knew that Archer did, for she was there with him in his ready room when – with a fairly significant glance at her – he'd made his last log entry about the crew's readiness "no matter what it takes, no matter what the cost."

She chewed a carrot – it was indeed agreeable to eat something with real texture and natural sweetness again – and eyed their oddly ebullient chief engineer. Had he figured out a way to avoid destruction? Or had he perhaps exaggerated the problem with the EPS grid in the first place? But that wasn't like him, especially given the level of detail they'd been working at recently.

She wanted to ask him if he'd found a solution, but it would have to wait. She had already decided that the less Archer knew about their challenges, the better. She turned her gaze on the captain as he sawed at his steak. He had made it fairly clear he didn't _want _any details. He just wanted to be able to tell the Aquatics they could disable the spheres, and mean it.

She glanced at Trip again, who had his eyes closed and was chewing his meat with worshipful intensity.

It was Trip who had first described to her the fine art of _managing up. _That was, at least in part, what she was doing with Archer now. Was it possible it was also what Trip was doing with _her? _

A soft whine came from the floor. Porthos had been allowed to join them, something that was not at all customary.

Why now? Did Archer wish to celebrate the renewed availability of freshly-cooked animal flesh with his pet? Or was this a subtle acknowledgment that this might be a final gathering of the beings he cared about most?

At the least, it suggested that he wasn't too concerned about T'Pol's personal sensibilities. Though, in truth, after surviving weeks of rationed showers and no working laundry in the closed environment of a starship, not even the sharp smell of beagle was enough to put her off her dinner.

So she ate.

x x x

T'Pol watched from behind as Ensign Sato was carried into Degra's ship by two MACOs. The captain and his team were leaving.

Even now, after the new losses and destruction of their most recent battle, with the armed Xindi weapon streaking towards Earth and their own fates sealed by the need to disable the spheres at all costs, Trip still struck her as oddly sanguine – or so she was forced to judge from the way he asked Reed to bring him back a souvenir and assured the captain they would be at the rendezvous coordinates.

Perhaps this was just one of Trip's peculiar talents – the ability to pretend that success was certain. Just as, perhaps, he felt his staff could be distracted from the certainty of chaos and destruction if they were focused on that drink at the 602 Club. "You need to offer the people you lead a _vision_ of what success looks like," Archer had told her once, before they departed for the Expanse, when she had resisted his suggestion that she give three new ensigns an inspirational welcome.

Was it possible to define success as simply as a drink in a bar?

She supposed it would mean, at least, that the bar still existed, and therefore the planet it sat on as well.

"I expect you to keep him in line," Archer told her.

"I'll do my best," she said, and the airlock door slid shut.

Archer had offered the remark as a kind of joke, judging from his tone, but in reality, she feared it might become all too necessary. And perhaps the captain did, too. Trip had already refused to consider the one sure method of destroying Sphere 41, an intentional warp containment breach.

That would obviously have sacrificed _Enterprise_, but at least it would have been a _fast _sacrifice.

So it was not beyond the realm of possibility that if he truly believed it would guarantee their own destruction, Trip would refuse to initiate the deflector pulse as well.

"As soon as they have departed, take us to Sphere 41," she told Mayweather, via the com. "Maximum warp."

"How long does that give us?" Trip asked her.

"Just over three hours. Are your modifications complete?"

"The deflector pulse should be ready to go within the hour. What I still can't figure out is how to have any ship left when we're done."

"Then I suggest you continue working on the problem to any extent you can without impacting our readiness."

He scowled. "Look, obviously there's a critical deadline to defeating the weapon, but what's the big rush with these spheres? They've already been here for nearly a thousand years."

She stepped closer to him. "We made an agreement with the Aquatics. It also became clear during the last battle that the spheres are far more capable of transforming the space around them than we had assumed. We must strike now, before the sphere-builders realize what we are doing and take further steps against us. Indeed, it's possible that the entire Expanse is at imminent risk of transformation."

He stared down at her, blue eyes serious and assessing, until his mouth quirked. "Do you suppose there's any chance Cunningham saved me the rest of that steak?"

She felt an eyebrow rise. Was this an example of psychological denial, or of his odd Human sense of humor? Or was he simply still hungry?

She should not allow herself to be distracted by such an ephemeral matter. "I'll be on the bridge," she said, and departed.

Once she'd checked in on the bridge and made her way into the ready room, however, she found herself with time to spare and was overcome by an odd impulse. She tabbed the comm. "T'Pol to Cunningham."

"Cunningham here."

"Crewman, what did you do with our leftover meals?"

"I put it all in stasis, ma'm. Will you be returning?"

"Could you take the commander's meal down to Engineering and deliver it to him with my compliments?"

"Yes ma'm. Would you like me to add a slice of the pie as well?"

"Yes, thank you," she said. "He'll probably want a glass of milk with that."

It was likely Trip would be working too hard to eat more than a bite or two. But she suspected he'd appreciate the gesture anyway.

"Would you like your meal as well, ma'am?"

She started to say no – she hadn't had much salad left, after all – and then thought again.

Perhaps, when it came down to it, life truly _could_ be that simple.

"I'll take a slice of the pie and a cup of chamomile tea, Cunningham. Thank you."

Why _not_? Who could say what the future would bring?

Perhaps she would even get to have that drink at the 602 Club.


	24. Zero Hour

**SPOILERS:** "Zero Hour" and prior episodes in Season 3, and it may make little sense without them.

**DISCLAIMER:** All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Zero Hour" was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I personally feel T'Pol would not have invited Trip home to Vulcan (and that he would not have asked her what her mother knew about them) if they had not had some kind of relationship in progress. So … along with saving the universe and mourning Archer, I guess it's time they squeezed one in. So: a non-explicit sex warning for this one. (And no, there are no plans for an NC-17 version.)

This ends Season Three. If you've been reviewing all along, you probably already know I love you. If you've been reading without reviewing, I would really appreciate a note of some kind at this point to let me know what you think (especially since the frickin' traffic stats haven't been working since the new year). And I hope this sticks this time since this chapter also spent some time in ff purgatory today. Weirdness.

* * *

"You said you had good news?"

Trip turned around, immediately noticing that T'Pol's expression and posture looked painfully taut. He smiled. "Yep. We've figured out how to keep from frying the ship with that deflector pulse."

"Without weakening the pulse?"

"Without weakening the pulse. It does require Travis to maneuver on thrusters, but he can manage it."

"Are you certain? We're going to be a on a very tight timeline."

"He can do it. We just ran a simulation successfully five times in a row. It'll be fine."

She stared at him for another moment and then visibly slumped, dropping her gaze to the deck.

"That's good news, T'Pol," he said, a little puzzled by her reaction. "It means we're not dead yet … maybe not for a long time to come."

She nodded and said, "Yes, it's good news," and finally raised her eyes back to his. She looked so tired that he wished he could give her an encouraging hug – not that it would be the least bit appropriate in the middle of Engineering, or anything she'd welcome at _any_ time. But it did seem to him, perhaps irrationally, that she was leaning in towards him a little, and he had to resist a strong impulse to at least squeeze her arm.

He wondered if _he'd_ have had the fortitude to knowingly order the sacrifice of ship and crew.

"I'm going to route the controls on this up to the science station on the bridge and man it from there," he said, returning to the task at hand. "We won't have any power for targeting sensors either, so I'm going to need a set of good target coordinates to transfer to the array."

"That shouldn't be a problem," she said. "If that's all, Commander, I need to check in with Phlox." She began to walk away.

"T'Pol," he said.

She stopped and looked at him.

"It's going to work."

She nodded tightly and left.

He watched her go, a little miffed that she was clearly still so tense about the coming operation, until he realized she had no particular reason to relax. The sphere-builders had already transformed the space around the sphere. What if they started hurling anomalies around as well? What if half the Reptilian fleet suddenly dropped out of a vortex? What if Phlox's compound failed?

He sighed. Okay, so maybe this whole thing was still a crap shoot. But at least it was a crap shoot they had _some _chance of surviving.

x x x

Malcolm said, "We also lost Forbes – he died in combat on the weapon." He added softly, "Hoshi, you need to get to sickbay." He waited for her to straighten herself up from the stunned hug Trip had automatically returned – then gave Trip another sober glance and led her away.

Trip looked at T'Pol, who was a little bent over as if someone had kicked her in the belly. This was, as it happened, exactly how he felt.

Degra's fellow primate from the Council – had they ever learned his name? – came forward. "We're very sorry about the loss of your captain and your crewman," he said. "As well as your people on the station."

"The station?" Trip asked, with a quick look at T'Pol.

"Commander Dolim destroyed an orbital facility before we could stop him. I believe your captain called it ... Yosemite?"

"Oh," Trip said. "Yosemite Three." It wasn't a large installation. He frowned a little at his own indifference, but at this point those additional numbers were truly just numbers. "But _Earth_ is okay?"

"It didn't take any damage at all. Your planet certainly is beautiful from space. I was also asked to pass along to you condolences from Commander Shran."

T'Pol shared a startled look with Trip.

"He was most helpful," the primate continued. "I doubt we could have succeeded without him."

T'Pol said, "That's … very interesting. I believe we should thank you for your assistance as well."

The man smiled sadly. "It was the least we could do. The Aquatics have agreed to ferry your ship to Earth if you wish. Will you allow us to escort you to them?"

"That would be most helpful," T'Pol said. She glanced soberly at Trip, then back at their guest. "If you will excuse us for a moment, I have a great deal of news to communicate with our crew."

"Of course," the man said, and departed.

Trip said, "I'm sure it's already spreading like wildfire."

"Indeed," she said, and tabbed the comm. button, asking Baird to set up a ship-wide announcement.

He put a hand over the comm. "Let them know Earth is safe first."

"Obviously," she said, with a hint of exasperation.

He smiled. "Sorry. I forgot how good you've gotten with this stuff."

She looked at him in puzzlement, as if she thought he must mean that sarcastically, even though his tone had been completely sincere.

He continued smiling at her until she seemed to realize that no barb was coming. Then she frowned and swallowed. "This is T'Pol," she said, and made a calm and complete announcement. Trip watched with increasing admiration as she hit all the right notes: She paused for a long moment to let the news of Earth's survival sink in. She managed to mark the passing of the captain and Forbes without making one loss seem less significant than the other. She explained how they would get home. She said that the captain had remarked in his last log entry how proud he was of this crew – and concluded by saying that their exemplary performance in this mission had clearly justified that pride.

_But pride is an emotion, _Trip thought. How had she had known that was exactly the right thing to say?

x x x

"You know, T'Pol's been great," Trip said. "You think there's any chance they'll let her stay in command?"

Malcolm sipped from one of the two shot glasses he'd brought to Trip's quarters, along with a bottle of single malt whisky from a 300-year-old distillery on the Isle of Skye. It was past midnight and they'd just watched out Trip's cabin window as the ship had slowly glided into position inside the Aquatic ship. They had raised a toast to their alien hosts, who were shaving over six weeks off their return trip, before Trip slumped down onto his bed and Malcolm claimed the desk chair. The bottle sat between them on the deck.

"I don't see how," Malcolm said. "She's not even officially a member of Starfleet."

"She said she was thinking of 'formalizing' her service with us."

"Did she?" Malcolm cocked his head. "Does that have anything to do with you?"

"I have no idea."

"Maybe they'll offer _you_ command."

"I don't want it."

"No?" Malcolm sounded surprised. "That's a change, isn't it?"

"To tell you the truth, right now I don't know _what_ the hell I want, other than the cap'n back, or a good night's sleep, or…" He sighed. "Or maybe another shot of that very fine whisky."

Malcolm poured them each some more and lifted his glass. "To Captain Archer."

"To Cap'n Archer," Trip agreed. "A real life hero who never wanted anyone to think he was a hero."

"I guess the real ones never do," Malcolm said.

Trip snorted. "Remember when we told those aliens on Risa we took turns being the captain?"

Malcolm shuddered. "Don't remind me. Though I won't mind too much if some _actual _beautiful women decide I'm a hero. We really did save the planet, after all. I think we've earned a _little_ fun."

"Definitely." Trip raised his glass again. "To all the beautiful women in the universe who really are beautiful women."

"Hear hear," Malcolm said.

"Your father will have to lighten up on the Royal Navy crap now."

Malcolm grunted. "Oh, he'll probably manage to say something like _in the Royal Navy, we'd never even THINK of stealing an innocent crew's warp coil_."

Trip chuckled at Malcolm's impression of his father before retorting, "The Royal Navy wouldn't _exist_ anymore if it weren't for that stolen warp coil. There's another one we owe you, Cap'n," he said, raising his half-empty glass, and took a swallow to finish it. "Maybe we should raise a toast to those aliens while we're at it. I hope they get home all right."

"To the Illyrians," Malcolm said, after sloshing a little more in each glass. After a long moment he added, "I'm sorry I didn't bring you a piece of the weapon. I didn't really have time to think about it."

"Forget about it." His request struck him as kind of childish now.

The door buzzed.

Trip said "Come in," and was not surprised to see the door admit T'Pol. "Well come on in!" he said, perhaps a little too heartily. How much had he drunk?

Malcolm stood up.

"At ease, Lieutenant," she said, and he sat back down. "I don't wish to interrupt…"

"T'Pol, You said I could buy you a drink in the 602 Club," Trip said. "But this single malt Malcolm brought over is actually a much finer drink than I would ever order there, because it's so damned expensive they probably don't even stock it. You should try it. You can practically taste the Scottish peat."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why would anyone wish for a beverage to taste like compressed decomposed organic matter?"

"It _is _an acquired taste," Malcolm said.

Trip scowled at him. He had just added "watch T'Pol try single malt whisky" to the list of things he wanted to do before he died.

"You only have two glasses in any case," she said, clearly content to dismiss the idea. "The Aquatics estimate arrival at the outer Solar system at approximately 1200. I believe that would make this an excellent time to rest and recuperate… or, I suppose, to drink." Her lip curled just slightly in muted disapproval.

"We were just toasting the cap'n," Trip said. "If you join us, that makes this an official wake, which is the least the man deserves. So come on, sit down. I've got another glass in the bathroom."

She hesitated and then sat down a little stiffly on the bed. Trip went into the bathroom and found the glass he used for rinsing his mouth. "Here we go. I washed it for you," he said and poured her a tiny sliver of whisky. "You know, I think I'd better add a splash in your case," he said, and went back to the bathroom for that, though he could tell from Malcolm's expression that he was pained at the idea.

He handed it over to her and they both watched her nostrils flare as she carefully swirled the amber liquid and took a sniff.

"She looks like an old hand," Malcolm said.

She took a careful sip and immediately started coughing.

Trip laughed. "Apparently not."

"The flavor is somewhat redolent of … petrochemicals," she gasped.

"Have you had those before?" Trip asked, still grinning, and took the glass back. "Never mind. Shall I get you some water?"

"Yes, please." She handed him the glass.

Trip drank down the little that was left in her glass and went back to the bathroom.

"Here you go," he said, returning, and sat down next to her on his bunk.

Malcolm said, "I'd better go. I want to check in on Hoshi before it gets too late."

"Does _she_ like single malt?" Trip asked.

"I don't believe alcohol is generally recommended in cases of traumatic brain injury," Malcolm said, with a touch of asperity. He picked up the bottle and examined it with an aggrieved expression. "Not that there's really anything left, anyway."

"Don't worry, Malcolm. I'll buy you another when we get home."

Malcolm said, "In that case, we might as well finish it off with a final toast." He poured another slug in Trip's glass and his own.

Trip raised his glass. "To Cap'n Archer's excellent taste in first officers. You've done us proud, T'Pol."

"Hear, hear," Malcolm said, and raised his glass. "And to Hoshi as well, for being such a trooper."

"Yes, to Hoshi, too," Trip agreed. Malcolm sure was bringing her up a lot all of a sudden. What was _that_ about?

As they each sipped their whisky, T'Pol sipped her water. "How have I 'done you proud'?" she asked curiously.

"You defeated the sphere-builders," Trip said.

"_And_ you've kept Trip in line," Malcolm said. "That can't be easy."

"That much is certain," T'Pol said, and both men laughed.

Malcolm stood up and raised the empty bottle in salute. "Goodnight then," he said, and left.

Trip waited for T'Pol to rise and make her exit, or at least put more distance between them by switching to the chair, but she didn't. His heart started to thump. "Do you want to have that talk now?"

"No." She drank the last of her water and put the glass down on the floor. "I'd rather do this," she said, and leaned over to kiss him.

Yes, talking could definitely wait, he thought, and pulled her right onto his lap.

x x x

Later, he pulled up his blanket to cover them both. "That was awfully nice," he said. It hadn't been as frenzied as their last time, nor as awkward as their first. It had been more relaxed and more comforting, without being any less satisfying.

"Yes, it was most agreeable," she said. She seemed content to lie there, half draped over him.

He sighed in contentment, and perhaps also in fatigue. "I should nag you to have that talk _now,_ but I'm too damned tired."

"You should sleep." She said it with an air of authority that might have annoyed him if it wasn't so true.

"What about you?"

"I am also quite fatigued. May I stay here with you?"

He almost laughed at the formality of her question – and out of delighted surprise that she had asked it. "Yes, you may."

"Thank you," she said, and sighed, and turned a little on her side, settling in. He knew he probably ought to get up and brush his teeth and do all that getting-ready-for-bed stuff, but she seemed willing to just stay right there under the blanket with him and so he stayed put. He reached up and turned off the light and lay there for a time with a warm Vulcan in his arms and the dim lights of the Aquatic ship shining in through the window until he thought he heard her breathing even out in sleep and then he let it claim him too.

x x x

Five hours later, he really needed to pee and he was thirsty and his head hurt and his left arm had fallen asleep.

The moment he tried to disentangle himself so he could address of any of those issues, she awoke. "Commander?" she said.

"I'm going to have to insist on _Trip_ when you're naked in my bed." He kissed her quickly on the forehead. "I'll just be a minute."

He took care of his various issues as quickly as he could but it wasn't quick enough; she had put on the lights and was getting into her cat suit as he exited the bathroom. "Oh, c'mon, T'Pol, I told you I'd be right back!"

"I have rested sufficiently. I need to meditate before I go back on duty."

He blinked wearily, realizing that it would probably sound churlish to argue with her about that.

"Vulcans need less rest than Humans," she said. "I suggest that you return to bed and complete your sleep cycle."

"I'm all right," he said, a little peevishly. His thoughts were already running ahead to coffee and engines. With the Aquatic ship hanging there outside the window – not to mention a fully dressed Vulcan in his cabin – he was feeling damned naked, so he quickly got into a pair of underwear, and tugged down a clean t-shirt. It reminded him of how old T'Pol had asked for a dirty one. He'd never had time to send it over, of course. "How about dinner tonight?"

"We will be in Earth's orbit by dinner tonight," she reminded him. "Starfleet Command may well have other priorities for us."

Could their mission really be over that soon? Not that he was complaining about that. "I think after we saved the planet we should be able to set a few priorities of our own. So: How about dinner tonight?"

She regarded him for a moment. "Very well."

He smiled. "Can I give you a kiss goodbye?"

She looked a little taken aback. "If that is your wish."

"It is." He stepped over and gave her a kiss and a hug. She was a little stiff, which was what he'd expected. He lengthened the kiss until she started to respond. If he pushed it, could he get her to abandon that plan to go meditate?

But then it occurred to him that this was T'Pol and she _needed_ to meditate and if they were ever going to make a go of this he needed to give her room to be who she was. "Okay, see you later," he said, with a last little tap on her cheek, and went back to his wardrobe to get a clean uniform.

She stood there for a moment, flashing him the Vulcan equivalent of an irritated scowl – yeah, he decided, he definitely _could_ have had her again – and then turned on her heel and left.

Trip grinned at the closed door.

After a horrible year that included losing Lizzie and Jon and so many others – and part of his own brain, for that matter – as well as any remaining assumptions that the universe was organized in even the slightest way to reward justice or goodness, he probably _ought_ to be feeling exhausted and lost right now.

But instead he felt like a new man.

And with any luck, they'd now have all the time in the world to figure this thing out.

THE END

_Reviews much appreciated._


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